The military calls its new weapon an ‘active denial system,’ but that’s an understatement. It’s a ray gun that shoots a beam that makes people feel as if they are about to catch fire. Apart from causing that terrifying sensation, the technology is supposed to be harmless – a non-lethal way to get enemies to drop their weapons. Military officials say it could save the lives of innocent civilians and service members in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The weapon is not expected to go into production until at least 2010, but all branches of the military have expressed interest in it, officials said. During the first media demonstration of the weapon yesterday, airmen fired beams from a large dish antenna mounted atop a Humvee at people pretending to be rioters and acting out other scenarios that US troops might encounter in war zones. The device’s two-man crew located their targets through powerful lenses and fired beams from 500 metres away. That is nearly 17 times the range of existing non-lethal weapons, such as rubber bullets. Anyone hit by the beam immediately jumped out of its path because of the sudden blast of heat […]