How to defend against the "convince-me" ray gun?

A secret organization operating out of an undisclosed location for an undisclosed parent organizations have invented a "convince-me" ray gun (CMRG) that works by an unknown mechanism. After an idea is loaded in the ray gun, the gun is fired at a person or group of people resulting in 75% acceptance of the idea. The remaining 25% are immune though it unknown if this is a generic ability or a psychologically based (ie. too damn stubborn to even consider another idea.)

Think of it as directional and highly effective advertising.

• Blocked by visible objects.
• The ray gun only operates in the visible spectrum.
• The gun is human mounted, weighing no more than 20 lbs (weight includes battery pack). Battery pack will last for 5 hours of continuous operation.
• Ray gun obeys the inverse-square law though someone staring at the gun even at a maximal distance will still be convinced of the encoded idea.
• Victim must see the ray gun.
• It takes several seconds to several hours depending on the complexity of the idea for it to become lodged in the victim's brain.
• Only the portion of the idea that a victim sees will be implanted in their mind. So if an idea takes 30 seconds to transmit, a victim may only see the first 10 seconds by closing their eyes or looking away.
• Ideas that counteract basic life-support functions won't work. No one is going to commit suicide because some jerk beamed out "Kill yourself."
• The victim isn't immediately aware that an idea is being broadcast as processing of the idea happens at a level below conscious awareness. All they will aware of is a bright flash or two. They may be aware of a new idea shortly after the idea broadcast completes.

Clearly a weapon such as this is incredibly powerful and huge interest to any organization that has a vested interest in the general public thinking a certain way. In light of what this ray gun can do, how would an angry citizen defend against it?

posted about 9 years ago

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