Bugsy,

Seems that a simple magnifying glass is used to concentrate the beams or some such, I'm not an experimenter in that field.
I prefer 18th Century firearms technology.

Some one remarked that defensive use of firearms doesn't seem to be used, here's one example:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/02/11/worker-fired-for-carrying-gun-on-company-property-given-job-back.html

Another crazed gun owner has gone on a rampage in the US, when will it stop? Uber driver Jason Dalton has been charged with six counts of murder over an alleged shooting rampage in Mitchigan. In a lawless gun happy society like the US, this type of thing is common place. Unfortunately there are those in our own society who would be happy to see gun laws here relaxed to the point where rampage murders by gun owners like Jason Balton would also become common place.

Sorry Is Mise,

My internet has been having some issues for the past few days. I'd have responded to you sooner otherwise, for I am intrigued by the notion of a hand held linear accelerator. My understanding has long been that coil guns are only practical on the scale of artillery weaponry, and that a hand-held gauss gun has about as much basis in fact as the Arnold Schwarzenegger film 'Eraser' (in which Arnie wields two rail guns with devastating effectiveness, with zero recoil. I love action movie physics.)

Toni,

Glad your computer is computing!!

Just Google Gauss rifles and there is quite a bit about them and there is a good video of a holf
dozen bottles of soft drink being busted with a steel projectile, enough power for the gun used to be a lethal weapon.
Not up to the power of air guns and cross bows but still effective.

Is Mise, what about the here and now? It wasn't a half dozen bottles of soft drink that gun owner Jason Dalton busted in Mitchigan! It was a half dozen innocent people.
Like those unreal Hollywood movies, some on the gun lobby side are living in a make believe Rambo world where gun toting citizens like this Jason Dalton would be given a free hand to carry out death and destruction on the rest of the community, Rambo style.
Unlike the Hollywood version we can't just walk out of the theater and back into reality, that is the reality!
What type of weapon(s) did Dalton use, was it all done legal?

//Just Google Gauss rifles and there is quite a bit about them//

Is there much discussion of the physics? That's what interests me. The speed and power with which the projectile is expelled is far less fascinating than the underlying mechanism by which it is propelled.

If I google gauss rifles, am I just going to wade into a big dick contest about muzzle velocity (yawn), or I will I get a proper insight into the underlying physics?

//Good point, Bugsy; laser guns are only in their infancy but already home made ones are able to ignite paper and capable of causing temporary blindness at some distance, and possibly permanent blindness.//

Class 4 lasers are used in industry to cut steel; I'm pretty sure you're made of weaker stuff than steel. The closest I've come is a class 3 infrared laser (twice the fun, because the beam is invisible).

And yes, they can send you blind. Happily, they won't stunt your growth or make your palms hairy.

//How's those home made lightsabers coming along?//

Lightsabers don't utilise laser technology. Why does everybody get this wrong? They must all be trekkies. A lightsaber blade is made of plasma, not coherent light. Look it up on Wookieepedia, you god-damn trekkie.