I’ve long said that what police need more than anything is a truly practical stun-setting phaser. The Taser kinda gets there, but has some limitations such as being single shot, short range and fairly easily defeated. The ability to just hit a “sit your ass down” button and bring a confrontation to a harmless end would be *fantastic* for many encounters. And not just police: it’d be great for home defense as well. But sticking with police, imagine how much less trouble there would be if violent and/or crazed weirdos (such as make a few appearances in the video below) could be simply shut down for a minute or two with minimal risk of harm. It’s people like the guy in the video below that lead to Bad Cops: having to deal with such aggressive, loud, obnoxious and downright evil scumbugs on a daily basis would make *anyone* into a misanthrope in no time flat.
As an alternative to phasers: truly practical “robocops” like “Chappie.” Run by AI with open-source programming that can be downloaded on command (but not uploaded without a complete physical overhaul), given super-human strength, super human ability to not give a damn and super human ability to simply stuff a looney into a crazy bucket, such robots would be *fantastic* backups.
Bonus Round: phasering the CNN crews and left-wing extremists who were leading the “insurrection” would have been handy as well.