The first few seconds of mass lightsaber ownership will go fine. But eventually, people will notice the large bulges in their front pockets, and wonder who they're specifically happy to see, and discover that they have lightsabers, and try to figure out how to turn them on. When this happens, depending on how well-labeled these things are (is there an "Aim Away From Face" sticker?), we're going to lose a sizable percent of the human population more or less immediately.

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You're not going to want to be on an airplane when this goes down.

For most of the world, this will result in tears, chaos, and many people taking a half day at work. Not everyone will fare that badly, though. People isolated from each other should do better, and anyone at a rave will find the dance floor getting really exciting for a few seconds.

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"Put your hands up in the air, put your hands up in the air!"

Once the initial carnage settles down and we take the lightsabers away from the children, the survivors will have to take a long look at the power they've just been given.

Lightsaber wounds cauterize instantly, which could be potentially useful in some types of surgical procedures (hand amputations come to mind). One can imagine that every hospital will soon have a team of specially-trained lightsaber surgeons to work on these particular cases; elite practitioners who will speak softly and take to wearing robes in their free time.

Even for household activities, lightsabers would be a blessing. Perfectly sliced tomatoes, ultra close shaves, and finally, something capable of opening those stupid plastic clamshell packages.

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Well, probably.

But rapid increases in productivity aren't always good news, as this increased efficiency can make workers redundant and put them out of a job. Within months, the world would see a mass increase in unemployment, which would lead to a new problem ...

The thin concrete and wooden walls that keep thieves away from us and our cool things obviously won't slow down lightsabers very much at all. This will of course be a problem as soon as lightsabers arrive in our world, but once the wave of displaced workers arrives, it will get a lot worse -- just hordes upon hordes of unemployed lumberjacks roaming the suburbs, looking for easy money. There honestly wouldn't be much point in locking your door at night once this happens, so likely is the chance of a burglar-shaped hole appearing in the wall beside it.

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"What's this s**t? An irregular oval? Care a little, man!"

This will inevitably lead to a lot of confrontations between lightsaber-armed homeowners and lumberjacks, and some seriously clumsy f*****g sword fights. Around this point, the government will consider its dwindling supply of body bags and street sweepers clogged with limbs, and decide it's seen enough. Martial law will be more or less inevitable, and we can expect to see massive sweeps of the population to collect lightsabers.

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You'll also be able to exchange them at your local high school -- no questions asked -- for a Jar-Jar Binks KFC cup.

But many, many lightsabers will fall through the cracks, from criminals stealing them to people hiding them to countries where the government sweeps just aren't that effective. For someone who genuinely wants one, a lightsaber will still be pretty easy to come by.

There'd just be nothing to stop this. The military, with their tanks and rifles and drones, could stay out of range of lightsaber-wielding villains. They could protect whatever they wanted, but they couldn't protect everything. And when any criminal or angry consumer can level a building or open a cash register with a flick of the wrist and little twirl, I don't see any way that the economy doesn't quickly break down. Eventually the store shelves will empty, and the petroleum will run out, and the soldiers will start slipping away in the night to be with their families. And after that? There's nothing but humming, crackling, lightsabering anarchy.