The dirty hippies are worried about a new device called a “sonic gun”, which can hurt the delicate hearing of people who don’t otherwise have to work for a living. The device is actually called LRAD, or “Long-Range Acoustic Device”, and could be used for crowd control in the 2010 Olympic Games in the dirty hippie capital of Canada: Vancouver, B.C.

According to the American Technology Corporation website, which makes the thing, it is a “high-intensity directional acoustic array designed for long-range communication and unmistakable warning”. In plain English, it’s really really goddamn loud.

The device can project a persons voice one kilometre away, and create a tone of 151 decibels at a distance of one metre, or 90 decibels at 300 metres. In plain English, that’s a distance between clubbing a hippie over the head, or sending a tear gas canister in his general direction.

The police say they have no intention on using this device as a weapon for crowd control, but could do so if they found themselves in a pinch. Still, I think it has nothing on the Cartman weapon. For dispersing hippies quickly and effectively, channeling death metal Slayer music into a broadcasting device is second to none: