TheLiquider: Homemade Energy Weapon - Coil Gun/ Coil Rifle

Dear America,

Due to the recent government anti-gun initiatives, future gun owners may have to come up with alternative means of self defense. 

I am currently watching TheLiquider's video, "Homemade Energy Weapon - Coil Gun/ Coil Rifle." This video shows the use of a homemade, electric-powered gun. You can watch the video here:

The Message:

The video shows a coil gun, a weapon that uses electrical power to propel its projectiles.  This coil gun looks cool.  It has a bunch of neat features including a rail-mounted red dot scope, a digital readout of the wattage, and a built-in flashlight.

This is not a "how-to" video, but more of a basic demonstration of a coil gun.

Good news: you get to see the coil gun shoot too. The video doesn't say what the projectile is, but a similar video showed a coil gun launching a screwdriver head.  I imagine that's what this coil gun shot too.  The projectile breaks a lightbulb.  That's mildly impressing.  A lightbulb can be broken with a baby fist.  See for yourself.

The Quality:

The video quality is good.  You can see everything clearly.  It's a handheld video, but then again, most youtube videos are these day.

As far as the audio goes, you can hear everything the coil gun is doing.  You can hear it charging up.  You can hear the projectile hit its target.  You can also hear classical music.  That's nice.  I always like to relax to classical music when I am watching gun videos.

Any Other Personal Thoughts I Have About The Video:

I wish the video would say a few things about what is going on.  A simple voiceover track could answer many of my questions. How did he/she make the coil gun?  How does it work? How much power do you need to fire the projectile?  How long does the coil gun take to charge up before you can shoot?  How heavy is the coil gun?  How much did it cost to make?

The video's creator did provide a link to the schematics, but for us non-nerds, a little dialogue explaining everything would be very helpful/ interesting.

I look forward to seeing more videos from TheLiquider in the future.

Thanks for reading.

MRCOLIONNOIR: President Obamas Executive Order Signing Speech

Dear America,

I am currently watchin MRCOLIONNOIR's video, "President Obamas Executive Order Signing Speech."  You can watch it here:

The Message:

This video features Mr. Colion Noir, the namesake of this Youtube channel.  Noir tells the story of Jason, a family man who heads home from a late shift.  He gets home, with thoughts of his daughter and paying his babysitter.  Suddenly shots are fired from unknown assailants.  All he can think about is his daughter, Jessica.  He had to protect her.  He starts firing back.

However, because of New York's gun laws, he is only allowed to carry 7 bullets in his magazine.  The criminals had the exact same guns as Jason, but since they weren't following the law anyway, they were more prepared to win a firefight. 

Colion refers to President Barack Hussein Obama's speech today and says that by telling an emotional story first, politicians can get their subjects to make choices that are ultimately detrimental to their safety and well being. 

"You see that?  I can do that too. I can pull at emotion and tug at the heartstrings and get them to behave irrationally and make decisions that aren't really advantageous to them.  And I think that's wrong," Mr. Colion Noir said passionately.

That's an interesting point. 

The Quality:

There are a lot of fancy Youtube videos out there, with professional graphics, lower 3rds,  lots of edits, auto-tune, lip synching, set.  Youtube also features a horde of videos that have bad audio, bad video, but because of a cute thing a cat or baby does with poop, they get a lot of hits.

This video is clearly professionally done. You can hear Noir perfectly.  They either used a boom mic or a lavalier mic.  He's well-lit.  The environment is clearly a professional soundstage.  So, even though, this isn't an overproduced Michael Bay production, it has all the elements of a professional video.

So, this isn't just some guy in his basement.  Mr. Colion Noir is a man with a vision, a budget, and a production crew.  Though this shoot probably didn't take all day, it took preparation & forethought.  Somebody had to set everything up, get the audio, the lights, and the shot just right.

Moreover, this video uses only one take.  There are no edits.  That means either Noir spoke eloquently and passionately the first time he ran through his 4-minute speech, or (more likely) he and his crew did several takes till he got it right. He didn't stammer.  He didn't say "um" or "uh." He presented his ideas in this one solid take professionally, eloquently, and passionately- without getting all shaky like he was over-emotional.  He was well-spoken, concise, rational, and personal.

Maybe that's what strikes me most about this video.  Just like the President's speech, this video is personal.  Because of the news-style, level, camera angle and the lack of ADD-inducing graphics and music, this video is calm and personal. It is as if Colion is speaking directly to you- and only to you.  

Regardless of your views about Noir's ideas, you can plainly see this video is well made, a personal response to the President's personal speech.

Any Other Personal Thoughts I Have About The Video:

Noir is wearing a shirt that says "Restricted. Law Enforcement/ Government Use Only."  While watching the video, I briefly noticed the shirt, but somehow, because of Noir's delivery, the shirt's words went into the background- like a subliminal message.

When I watched the video a 3rd time, I noticed the shirt again and it raised a question:  Why should we let elected officials and everyone who protects them (secret service, military, police, CIA, FBI, NSA, ATF, and now the IRS, and more!) use guns as protection when common folk like you and me are quickly  having our gun rights stripped away by those same people?  Don't we deserve protection too?

That's the point of Noir's video.  Regardless of whether you agree with him or not, he comes across as a sane, rational, passionate, yet composed, professional- not some "gun nut Republican."  If he is going to be rational, maybe those who oppose his views could take a second and rationally listen to them.

Thanks for reading.

Introduction

Hello, America.
I started this blog because there are a lot of confusing messages about  guns right now.  People are making a lot of emotional decisions both for and against guns. Marshall McCluhan said "The medium is the message."  This blog is here to analyze and review the medium of video- specifically gun videos.  Each entry will feature one gun video as well as a few thoughts regarding:

• the overall message of the video
• the quality of the video
• any other personal thoughts I have because of the video

Let's see what these gun videos have to say!

Thanks for reading!