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Realising that lots of people pretend they’re holding a deadly weapon when wielding a flashlight, the makers of the Dogstar designed it to look like a handheld cannon straight out of a sci-fi epic. The beam is even turned on using a trigger instead of a button, so you can pretend those harmless photons it emits are a deadly spray of ammunition.
There’s no word on availability just yet, as the model demonstrated at the 2012 RISCON Safety & Security Trade Show in Tokyo was just a prototype. But the company behind it plans to put the 68,000 lumen, nine pound behemoth into production for under a million yen, which means at most it would set you back around £8,000. It looks cool, it runs at full blast for 80 minutes on a single charge, but is it really worth the price of a new car?
[InventorSpot via Gigazine]
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Cool, i’ve been looking for a new flashlight for work.Should just about fit in my toolbox.
Would that even be legal in the UK? One 10 second burst onto a busy motorway and you’ve killed 20 people.
That particular use would be illegal but I don’t see why it’d be illegal to own. Anyone can buy a ‘Robert Juliat Lancelot’ for example which has a lamp with an output over 360,000 lumens.
It would be perfectly legal, but using it to kill drivers would not be legal, it’s the same deal with hammers, use one to drive nails into wood and to open walnuts and you will be fine, use it to kill your neighbours and you may very well get yourself in trouble.
nts: don’t use things to kill people.
Guns aren’t legal to own without a licence but by the same logic should be. Our laws are mildly inconsistent on such issues.
guns don’t really have a benign use though, unlike a hammer (unless you’re a nail or a walnut).
>”guns don’t really have a benign use though”
You’ve obviously never got naked and stood at your window with a gun with a cowboy hat on, gently crying as you stare out at the street with dead eyes, slowly pulling a tiny novelty comb through your dense manly moustache.
It scares the life out of the local children but no one gets hurt.
No I haven’t and you shouldn’t either!
>”Guns aren’t legal to own without a licence but by the same logic should be.”
Here’s the logic.
Objects that are designed primarily to perform non-injurious tasks (yet could still kill or injure if misused) are allowed.
Objects that are designed primarily to kill or injure – even in defence – (yet could still be used for non-injurious tasks) are not allowed (or at least regulated).
So, using this logic:
Guns = not allowed.
Hammers = allowed.
Powerful flash lights = allowed.
I expect we could dig up a few examples that might straddle the two camps (a knife ?) but generally common sense will tell you were each belongs by looking at their primary purpose.
Nah a knife’s primary purpose is as a cutting tool, not a defensive weapon, at least the ones we are legally allowed to carry (non-locking with short blades). If a firearm had a use other than killing and one was designed for such use then we’d be able to buy and carry them with no licensing. I guess a flare gun could be a possible example but then I’m not sure it really counts as a firearm.