Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, laser guns are real now.

China has been hard at work developing a weapon that seems like something straight out of a movie, boasting the ability to hit a target from over a kilometre away and causing “instant carbonisation” of human skin and tissues as reported by the South China Morning Post.

While the The ZKZM-500 laser assault rifle looks strong enough to pull the ears off a Gundark, the rifle has been classified as non-lethal, rather capable of inflicting excruciating pain on its target from the burning. “The pain will be beyond endurance,” according to a researcher who had took part in the development and field testing of a prototype – per the report.

The applications of this type of weaponry will lean towards terrorist and hostage situations where for example, it could be fired through a window to neutralise a hostile and create time for people to escape or for other units to enter and take control of the situation.

And on top of this, the beam is completely invisible. So I guess once again we’ll all be wondering who shot first..

Real cool stuff, until you get hit by it I guess.