Heat weapons

Here's a fascinating piece by Fred Kaplan at Slate.com about a new weapon that fires a nbeam of heat pain. Those on whom it has been tested say it feels like heat all over the body, as though their clothes were on fire. But the feeling is an illusion. The heat beam penetrates just one-sixy-fourth of an inch into your body, inflaming nerve endings without actually burning.

It's an interesting evolution in non-lethal weapons, from short-range (batons, pepper spray) to long-range. It's also more discriminate than gas and less dangerous than projectiles like rubber bullets.

The question: Will the ability to inflict pain without serious injury lead to a greater willingness to inflict pain, almost as if the pain isn't quite real? Does some of what these weapons and others -- a long-range acoustical device that can target narrow sound beams at an excruciating level but below that of real hearing damage -- amount to torture?