Lightsabers / Real or not real?

The Guardian article made me think about the different weapons I've seen in science fiction movies. There are so many weapons that are developed and used everyday (http://science.howstuffworks.com/laser-weapon.htm) that I think it's possible for scientists to come up with some sort of lightsaber in the future. I hope neither a laser weapon nor any kind of new weapon becomes available, though! Enough weapons are out there already and too many people get hurt because of them! Since so many people think the lightsaber is the coolest weapon in science fiction, it would be nice if somebody could create one that looked exactly as one of them but couldn't hurt anybody.