Don't they already have some sci-fi laser/EW gizmos to take care of those

Isn't that the problem? Someone (but apparently DHS, not the military though there were military staff present, maybe?) had one of those sci-fi laser gizmos and used it without authorization or proper notifications.

I don't think we'll ever learn the real details about exactly what happened, the audit trail (if there was one) is probably in shredder baskets by now