Many years ago, when I lived near Oakland and in San Francisco, I had one of these low-tech anti-theft devices for my car. Good thing I wasn’t in Australia, where cops arrested a guy for possessing one, thinking it was a gun. “Get a new steering wheel lock, it looks like a bloody gun,” said the arresting officer, telling the 18-year-old victim he was a “a lucky boy,” since “any other cop would have had you at gunpoint.”

Gizmodo’s Matt Buchanan wonders rightly if Australians now have access to space death ray guns.