THIS.
It has been my opinion for a long time. Then again a friend of mine has many illegal arms bought from a gun show so there are other issues, many cultural.
If you still hear things through ear protection, why wear it at all?
That sounded more aggressive than I meant.
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Fixed for the correct terminology.
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I didn’t say they didn’t do anything, but it isn’t silent. I does make the sounds less - much less in some cases, and will remove some of the front muzzle break blast. It makes everything tamer for the shooter and spectator. It honestly relaxing in a sense that its less abrasive shooting.
But it isn’t at all like the movies where it makes that cool pew pew sound. Damnnit.
Just search on youtube people shooting them. Now usually the sound on those videos aren’t accurate to real life, but it gives you an idea. There are 10s of thousands of owners out there. Maybe hundreds of thousands. If you aren’t using sub sonic ammunition, you will get a “crack” of the actual bullet going super sonic. You also get the clack of the action. Like someone else pointed out, you can get .22lr pretty quiet.
But again, there is zero reason they are on the NFA list. As I said, even most European countries who have tighter actual gun laws, don’t have as many restrictions on suppressors - again partly because they are more practical with less wide open spaces.
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That’s okay!
But, if they are effective, then great, but that seems to counter the evidence and experience of our esteemed gun users that they are not so great.
I use ear protection (for non gun stuff, drilling and the like) to keep out the sound. And yes, I cannot hear anything, even when I’m being shouted at.
If I could I would replace the ear defenders.
Up above, in all the responses, there are comments about suppressors being not so great at reducing sound, and also about them being essential for certain circumstances, for reducing sound.
Which is it?
Interesting, because I own a Ruger Ranch Rifle which is effectively the same rifle as an AR-15, but has a full wooden stock and absolutely no pseudo military bling bling. I wonder if that would keep it safe from being banned by those who couldn’t distinguish it on sight from a Red Ryder BB gun.
No one cares about banning mini 14s because they can’t hit the broad side of a barn 
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I generally agree with the point above. Those that have legal firearms should have access to legal suppressors.
My beef is that you started your argument with an easily disproved claim that movie-like silent guns are “pure fiction”. A .22 is “an anemic round” and probably not the choice of drug dealers but a silenced .22 can be plenty silent and it can be used to kill people.
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Suppressors don’t have to be silent to make it more difficult to locate the shooter. (And, yes, I know the physics involved.) Dispersion is a wonderful thing. Today’s shooter was remarkably ill-prepared in many ways; if our domestic security is as good as our transportation security they’ll prepare for the next one as if he’ll be just as incompetent. After all, the bad guys are always stupid.
We could take this thread where few boingers dare to tread, could we not??
Edit: When I do need to hit the broad side of a barn, I have a lovely rebuilt M1903. Getting harder to afford that 30-06 though.
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I am a 2nd Amendment supporter, and I think dereg of laws on suppressors (or ‘silencers’ or whatever the bleep) is a very bad idea, because I was worried right from the start about the kind of thing that happened today. Having more suppressors in use may not cause an increase in the number of shootings, but it would make shootings like this one more deadly.
Witnesses have said the police didn’t respond to the shooter until after he had already fired 20 or 30 shots. That’s because out in the open, the sound dissipated quickly and it was difficult for them to figure out where he was. If he had used a suppressor, it would have taken them even longer because it would have been harder to zero in.
With less noise, the victims would have taken longer to realize they were under fire. So they would have been slower to drop or take cover, so more of them would have been hit.
Making silencers easier to get will probably not inspire a wave of nut shootings, but it will make it much, much harder to defend against nut shooters.
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In many European countries buying that model of gun guarantees you some extra scrutiny:
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I said the “pe-tew pe-tew” sound is pure fiction. And fair point that the .22lr can get pretty quiet, but it isn’t truly silenced. To be fair, I was thinking of 9mm hand guns and AR type rifles, which usually aren’t used with subsonic rounds, and even when they are its way different than the movies as far as sound.
Yes, any gun, with or with out a suppressor, can be used to kill someone.
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I don’t disagree. Suppressors can be used to make attacks more deadly. How much more deadly?
You’re starting out with the mass shootings (which are the small piece of a large pie). (about 4% by those links)
And then you’re focusing on the small piece of the already small piece of a small pie (i.e. mass shooters whose crime may benefit from suppressors).
So, you guys aren’t wrongheaded fundamentally, however…
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The issue here is that effects are additive. Muffs and plugs may be uncomfortable. Plugs may not be put in properly to get their full rated effect. When your hearing is on the line, why wouldn’t you want to have all of the safety measure available? In medicine we talk about theoretical effectiveness and “use effectiveness.” A set and forget IUD will prevent pregnancy better than taking a pill every day, because you don’t have to remember it. Similarly the more safety measure that are set and forget, the more likely they are used. I am a physician and I see hearing tests all the time. Even people who use double hearing protection may see some degradation of their hearing if they are sport shooting a lot. On top of that, rifles with suppressors shoot more accurately—so if you are a hunter, you are more likely to get a good shoot and less likely to simply wound the animal. Suppressors make a big difference to your neighbors, who don’t plan to wear hearing protection. The ability to decrease the sounds of local gun ranges would be a big deal and way to help ranges be more neighborly (here in VT, we have ranges that were once rural and then towns and cities grew up nearby). Suppressors a not silencers, but they are a tool that is useful and would provide several benefits.
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As I’ve written elsewhere, regardless of the specifics today the national Republicans should look to the statistics. They’ve spent years pumping up the anxiety level and readiness to use violence among a segment of the US population that was already disposed to own firearms. They’ve done that in part with lots of rhetoric about “watering the tree of liberty” and the Second Amendment as a patriotic provision against tyranny. We all know the pattern.
Now they are the government and are in the process of pushing an agenda that they know is massively unpopular. We know that they know it’s unpopular simply by the secrecy they’re using to push it through, without hearings without review and without even letting the public see it before they vote on it, all to benefit the “elites” that already have the most and that their voters have been taught to hate. They’re gutting programs that their voters objected to not as such but because they were also going to the wrong people but the cuts are going to be hitting them – the good Americans – hardest. They might have put up with that but when half of your Appalachian town is surviving on those programs and people you know (maybe you, maybe family, etc.) are going to die as a result … well you didn’t have much to lose anyway. “Tyranny” just got a new face.
That phenomenon doesn’t have to be very common at all. We’re not talking about a few thousand Syrian refugees a year here – we’re talking about millions of Americans who are already here, already armed, and aren’t blaming some diffuse “West” or “liberals” for their problems. They know the target, and there aren’t that many of them. They won’t be blowing up planes, either.
To be clear: there’s nothing about this that I like. I mostly wish, like Nick Hanauer, that the people who are in position to steer this boat would wake up and start paying attention to the damned icebergs. At the very least, looking out for their own skins when they’re doing their damnedest to back millions of heavily-armed and already paranoid Americans into a corner.
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It’s not really important, but if gun fetishists stop nitpicking for too long, their brains might fire up again and the collective horror of what it is they’re actually fighting for that realization might bring would surely kill them. So it’s all “tut, tut, that’s an extended MAGAZINE, not a clip, that helped that man gun down 19 toddlers.” until then.
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Most of the resistance to relaxing the NFA classification is based on people’s impressions on what suppressors do, which is in turn based on TV and film. That is why they are unregulated in places like New Zealand and Germany.
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You seem to have missed the part where Germany requires a proficiency test for firearms, and that both countries will take your firearms away if they even suspect you of having criminal associations or a history of domestic abuse or mental illness.
As a supporter of responsible gun ownership, I see no reason why firearms should be quieter.
If a crime is being committed with a firearm, the only concerned party is the criminal. Cops probably like to know what’s going on and everyone else would probably appreciate the heads-up that they need to get the hell away.
Concern for my hearing at a range is expressed by my willingness to use hearing protection.
Concerns of hunters claiming they need to be stealthy be damned. They can pick up a perfectly fine compound bow to take down game. If it’s good enough for the folks in my archery club (who seem to have no end to the game meat they bring back to share), it should be perfectly fine for them.
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