A private company has succeeded in creating a laser rifle that is claimed to be suitable for use by the police in overcoming demonstrations.
ZKZM, the company’s name, said the laser rifle was not a lethal weapon. However, the person who was hit by the shot would feel excruciating pain.
“The weapon was designed to, for example, burn illegal banners during a demonstration or burn the hair or clothes of protesters,” said a ZKZM manager who declined to be identified.
“It is designed not to kill like a rifle that uses bullets and cannot cause instant carbonization of human skin,” he added.
The 15 mm caliber rifle weighs about 3 kilograms and has a range of up to 800 meters. The laser marking can penetrate glass or other transparent layers. The laser gun can be mounted on a car, boat, or plane.
Currently ZKZM is looking for partners who have licenses to manufacture weapons or other companies in the defense industry to start producing these laser rifles on a large scale.
However, the company insists that at this time the laser rifle will still be made available to the Chinese police.
ZKZM’s confession, on the one hand, was met with skepticism by a number of weapons experts. They say that laser weapon systems are far from real or only exist in fictional stories like Star Wars.
The first reason is because laser weapons are still banned by the international community because they can cause excruciating pain for the target human.
Second, as reported by Techcrunch , because the energy required to burn someone using a laser from a distance of hundreds of meters will be enormous. That energy cannot be produced by a rifle of such a small size and weight.
So far, laser weapons have been developed by several countries and private companies in the United States. But these weapons are generally large and are used to shoot large objects such as airplanes, lasers , or battleships.
The US Navy in 2013 for example, has demonstrated the ability of a laser cannon that can paralyze enemy warships and warplanes in battle. The Chinese government in 2014 also claimed it was developing a laser cannon.
While in the private sector, there are Boeing and Lockheed Martin who claim to be developing laser cannons to immobilize drones or other small aircraft.