Chinese laser rifle, real or fake?

When we first saw reports of an actual handheld laser rifle prototype built by ZKZM Laser based in China we were very curious. Could handheld laser weaponry be a reality in 2018? Now, we have some experience with lasers having provided performance optics to a large amount of photonics labs and defense contractors since 1955. However, we reached out to our favorite YouTuber and laser expert Styropyro to get his thoughts. In his video Styropyro goes through some very interesting principles of physics that certainly cast a lot of doubt on the claims made. At the moment we're going to say it's fully debunked, however we're eager to learn more and hopefully shark mounted lasers will be next.