At least that’s what the attention screaming headline of a recent 60 Minutes piece recently declared. if you click on the link you can actually see the 60 Minutes clip in question. I’ll briefly explain its contents here, although I should caution that the speakers on my computer are broken, so I couldn’t hear what was happening:
__
Two men meet in a secluded field, in what is quite clearly a pre-arranged sexual rendezvous. One of them is dressed in military fatigues, indicating his aggressive and dominant tendencies. The other fellow has the elongated nostrils of a classic bottom.
A short distance away is a dark van, that looks a little bit like it was designed using the 1980’s era Lego Space collection. The van proceeds to shoot the bottom with some kind of invisible beam, causing him to shudder in ecstasy, his limbs akimbo. The process repeats several times until he screams the safeword, “Candace Bergen.”
Several other people receive the same treatment, including a police officer, a woman, the police officer again, then several men in their underpants. The clip ends before they can disrobe further, the editors at 60 Minutes ever-conscious of the children who might still be watching at this early hour.
__
The pedants among you will surely have pointed out by now that this isn’t a ray gun so much as it is a truck mounted distance-tickler, a device that surely can’t be difficult to come by on the streets of downtown Japan. Although it has worthy uses (crowd control, pet-obedience, sabotaging synchronized swimming events) it isn’t really a “ray gun” in the classic sense - i.e. it doesn’t conjure up any images of a Futuristic Sci-Fi Utopia where people walk around in form fitting metallic unitards, while robots serve drinks and pleasure our wives.
So, as a friendly service to 60 Minutes, and the rest of the mainstream media, if you ever want to call something a ray gun again, it should look at least something like one of these:
Failing that, it should at least be able to put a fucking hole in something.
___
Chris Bucholz is a writer and a robot. His personal blog, robotmantheblog.com contains a great deal of other humor articles, all of dubious quality and taste.
Last 5 posts by Chris Bucholz
- The 20 Stupidest GI Joe Vehicles Ever - November 25th, 2008
- How To Train An Army of Animals To Do Your Bidding - November 18th, 2008
- Everything I need to know I learned from He-Man - November 11th, 2008
- Campaign 2008: The Year in Pictures - November 4th, 2008
- The Scouts are offering a Merit Badge in Boning - October 28th, 2008
July 30th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I live in Sherman, TX where a Raytheon plant use to be. I have reason to believe that a Pscho named Stanley Cobbs/Aka Jon Lindly has in his posession a gun which could be a Ray Gun or something very close. He is a thief and is from the Hendrix, OK area and is known to be a person that will steal gold out of a dead person’s mouth. I just hope that it is not true. That the military has actually been able to keep it out of civilians hands. He has been stalking me for over 2 years and strange things have happened to me since that time that I can’t explain. Being struck in the head and body through my windows by something that I can not see. I can hear it and feel it. It does feel like heat. I someone is able to hold that particular weapon on a victim for a long period of time it could kill them especially if aimed at vital organs.
March 15th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
You guys don’t seem to understand why they actually made this. They are prepairing for war with american citizens Theay have all kinds of stuff now and its going to be scary as hell. They make this shit cause they know they have to have every possible angle covered cause they know us citizens will fight to the death and if they slip up, their fucked!
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing — Edmund Burke
March 12th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
damn, should have kept this a military secret for a while longer.. send them to IRAQ with CIA agents dressed as Moses dropping random people to their knees in pain for worshipping the wrong way!! Problem fucking solved
March 11th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Dude……..I SO want one of those. If for anything else, than to zap a bag full of puppies or my idiot nieghbors.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Tesla, still, is rolling over in his grave.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:41 am
Why use peaceful protesters in the clip? We can’t have people exercising free speech and their rights to dissent, especially against today’s regime.
What a GREAT substitute for water boarding, but no wet mess!!!
WHO is going to stop them from abusing this technology? Raytheon makes a smaller table top model, perfect for prison and personal (ab)use.
Organized crime already uses this technology… Google Electronic Harassment or see Atlanta-Attacks.com for one person’s true story.
God help us all!!!
March 6th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
The deadliest weapon in any house is a microwave oven, properly reconfigured to beam its waves at your enemy. That is all this thing is - look at it’s configuration for clues.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Yes! Moonraker rules!
March 6th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I have a large caliber penis gun that if I shoot you with it….well…er…you’re fucked…
But you can defeat it with a thin skin of rubber. Damn!
March 6th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Only if the shiny side faces out.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Will my foil suit reflect the raygun?
March 6th, 2008 at 8:26 am
DOD Guy: Mr. President, the Star Wars defenxe initiative wasn’t actually based on the movei Star Wars.
GWB: Well Ah’m the presdent, an’ I think we should give our army ray guns!
DOD Guy: Will someone please explain this to him?
GWB: … an’ jet packs.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Ray gun? More like a promising new torture device for the Bush administration.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Hmmm… over 60 million of dollars of technology defeated by a mattress. Protesters wouldn’t lug around a mattress to protect themselves? Really? How about a full length mirror? What would that do? What a useless piece of crap - call me when I can’t beat it with $10 of merchandise from a second-hand store.
Interestingly, the military refused requests for the device to be used in Iraq (high ranking officers have been asking since 2003 for non-lethal crowd control) They cite that it is too expensive and might be construed as a torture device.
Useless.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:37 am
I read about that in a Popular Science article a few years back; since it wasn’t the cover story, I guess it wasn’t doomed after all.
I concur that “ray gun” is a misnomer; this thing fires milimeter waves, not rays. Kind of like microwaves, but at a much higher frequency. And it hurts like crazy, by all accounts. No tickles. Unless this is a completely different sort of milimeter wave gun.
Here’s a link to a PDF published by Raytheon, the original developers of the technology: http://www.raytheon.com/products/stellent/groups/public/documents/content/cms04_017939.pdf
For those who are interested, it is rumored that the Chinese black market has plans for a DIY laser rifle available for a few grand. Trouble with it is that the whole power supply weighs a ton, and must be carried on the back.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I dunno, with people spending cancer-worthy amounts of time in the sun and great sums of money on moronic tanning beds, don’t you think there’d be at least ONE dimwit who’d get their jollies off being zapped by this thing?
As far as innocent (?) protesters, I agree that this is a far better solution than that whole “boot-to-head” deal. Not that I care about the protesters, but I do spend quite a bit of time polishing my boots.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
“it’s a damn sight better than their current system of unloading eight clips of ammo into a homeless person for waving a stick around.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….YeeHah Potatoes.
March 4th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Great to see the Americans tax dollars are being well-spent building Giant multi-million dollar guns with the sole purpose of tickling people from one hundred feet away, that’ll teach those evil pacifistic war protesters. Capitalist pigdogs!
But can anyone else see the real-breakthrough here? SEX-TOYS DAMNIT! Like those tiny laser pointers that assholes used to use. You’d just point the miniature tickle gun at the girl you’re trying to pick up, then when she says “What in the name of Christmas was that”? You say “Hey I don’t know but I just walked into the room, heh, heh, heh” and then she’d presumably rip off her clothes right there and bone your brains out. And you’d say “Alright ticklegun”! Yeah I can see the infomercials now.
March 4th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
fucking pants? Are those like my humping shorts?
March 4th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I got a great big ray gun right here in my fucking pants!
March 4th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
1.) That’s not a ray gun, THIS is a ray gun! Actually, it’s a .pdf that’s ABOUT a ray gun.
http://www.defensereview.com/352003/TIS1.pdf
2.) Mr. Swaim and I obviously have different opinions regarding the solution to the housing shortage problem.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Yeah, despite the probability of this being misused by the authorities, it’s a damn sight better than their current system of unloading eight clips of ammo into a homeless person for waving a stick around.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
A) I would pay any amount of money for one of these.
B) No more rioters getting killed by mis-applied bean bags. Just horrible, horrible pain!
C) I kinda want to be hit by one of these things, just to see how it feels.
D) It uses no ammo. They could literally put on of these things on a building, zap the fuck out of people all day for no reason, and nothing bad would come of it but a little bit of wasted electricity. Which would totally be worth it.
Conclusion: This is the greatest invention ever.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
March 4th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I worry most that the people who use it, are going to be the people willing to fire on innocent protestors. That kin dof blindly obedient mindset controlling a “ray gun” doesn’t engender feelings of security.
If they want to go with ray gun as a name for the device, they should at least give the operators helmets with a fin on the top. And matching gloves and go-go boots.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System
I guess that the real name for the ray gun is Active Denial System…but if the producers at 60 Minutes called it that, then it really wouldn’t be that much fun to watch. From what I gather, if the frequency of the beam was increased, then it would penetrate even deeper into the human body, and it appears that Raytheon is working on a more portable version.
Also…if they called it the Active Insane Denial System, you could call it the AIDS Gun!
March 4th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Dammit Chris, how can you mock something as awesome as a fucking RAY GUN actually existing? This thing is fucking amazing and deserves to be revered only as such. I mean, a fucking ray gun?! The only thing that detracts from it is the fact that its invisible and not red or green or blue…and that the targets don’t disintegrate
March 4th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Laser, plasma, laser , laser not a single ray gun on you photos
March 4th, 2008 at 9:33 am
The show says you could cause 2nd degree burns and stuff. That’s pretty wicked.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:05 am
I think 60 Minutes meant the guy who drives the truck’s name is “Ray Gun.”