Even if lasers are a ways off - a new concept is fast approaching. There is a project known as Wiki-Weapon that is attempting to make guns that can be reproduced on 3D printers.
At least at the moment, a rapid prototype machine costs ten to twenty times more than a handgun, so arguments about making firearms available to everyone ring a bit hollow. Furthermore, the thermoplastic used by these machines probably can't withstand firing most commonly used cartridges - rendering the exercise somewhat impractical.
Kind of scary really, I'm pretty sure some of our games warned us about this.
Games of imagination are never truly done. Yet tomorrow we shall start another one.
At 1 Km the 50Kw weapon could cut through a 15 mm thick (half inch) steel girder. The wording is a bit ambiguous though. It doesn't say how fast it could cut through it or if it only punched a hole or sliced the thing in half. Even under the most conservative of those interpretations, that's a lot of heat on target, steel is not easy to burn through.
It was able to take down drones and a fast moving (50 m/s) metal "ball" (I'm assuming this was a hollow sphere).
Unfortunately the gun is just the nozzle end of a half ton laser. (Or is that fortunately?) Anyway, it gives an idea of what a laser of that power can do. Even if it's only a few inches away from the object it's cutting.