It's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to make a real-life lightsaber. Sure, it's going to be tricky, as you have to find a way to actually make the laser stop and not blast through the roof every time you turn the damn thing on, but once those kinds of kinks are worked out we'll be in business. Until then, though, we'll just have to make due with swinging around shower curtain rods like George Michael in Arrested Development. Or you can do like some random guy in Portland, Oregon and use the toy versions.
Oregon Live (via Giant Freakin Robot) has reported an incident in the Pacific Northwest state that involved a disorderly man named David Allen Canterbury, 33, who dual-wielded a pair of toy lightsabers and started swinging them around in a local Toys R Us, hitting random customers, and then proceeded to venture outside where he had a showdown with the police. At one point a police officer fired a Taser at Canterbury, but the man actually managed to deflect one of the wires with his Jedi sword. The police eventually managed to wrestle Canterbury to the ground and he has been sentenced to 45 days in jail and two years probation on charges of fourth-degree assault and resisting arrest, to which the defendant pleaded no contest. During his cast, Canterbury told the judge that he had already been looking for mental-health treatment and he has previously been arrested for heroin possession.
This story would obviously be a lot less funny if Canterbury had actually managed to hurt somebody, but fortunately it doesn't sound like that's the case. Instead I just get to think about this for the rest of the day:
