I love the idea of generating two parallel beams and leveraging the conductivity of plasma as a sort of "wireless" taser. It's likely not feasible (I'm guessing someone has tried it), and it would be interesting to know why.

It's called an "electrolaser": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser. There are reports that they work in practice, but not yet well enough for use. I don't know why.

I suspect being hit by the beams might harm the victim, with the electricity just being a bonus. I doubt the laser generators are cheap and portable as well.

It has an EMP potential to fry electronics probably.

The laser power might kill the victim, but using this for actually sending electricity might work. Might be a good replacement for high power lines in some cases.

Last year, I attended a colloquium from a scientist from the army weapons' division specifically about this (filaments). He kept extolling the career opportunities available at his lab...doing weapons research.

I will be (if the funding comes in, fingers crossed) funded by the DoD too...and what I am doing is laser plasma related but it isn't directly weapons research.