Suppressors

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The Washington Post: Gun silencers are hard to buy. Donald Trump Jr. and silencer makers want to change that.

When I first heard this I thought the hearing protection argument was a smoke screen, but I think it is persuasive.

I do worry about the technology being used to increase casualties in mass shootings, but such is life.

I could give you the 'do it for the puppies' pitch about deaf hunting dogs (a real problem, they last about 5 years on average), but the real issue is that silencers just aren't used very often in crime as they simply are not practical, and if a criminal did want one, they're very simple to improvise. The proposed law wouldn't make them 'over the counter', you'd still have to fill out the paperwork and go through the background check as if you were buying a firearm, you just wouldn't have to go through the hassle of applying to the ATF, paying an extra $200 per application, getting fingerprinted, waiting 6-12 months, etc, all for an item that amounts to a fancy car muffler. I also wouldn't worry too much about someone using one in a mass shooting, they make guns less loud, they don't actually make them quiet.

Legislation against suppressors is irrational. I suspect this emerged more as a result of an emotional response to TV and movies featuring baddies armed with "silencers" than any practical consideration about the use of suppressors.

Use of suppressors is good for all concerned: sportsmen, neighbors, dogs and other animals.

There is no way a that a suppressor is going to increase the casualty count in a mass shooting.

Only ignorant people think that making them hard to buy means people who want to use them for nefarious purposes won't be able to use them, though the reality is that the overwhelming majority of criminal shootings are not committed with suppressed weapons, so I think this is mostly a fantasy concern.

Actually, the concern was that poachers would use them to quietly take game; the law was passed during the depression, so I guess that was more of a concern back then. That they're still so heavily regulated 80 years later is a good example of the kind of bureaucratic inertia that leads me to libertarianism, as it's very difficult to undo a bad law, so I prefer to make as few laws as possible in the first place.

I should add, there's also a longstanding issue here with shooting ranges that were built out in the boonies years ago getting shut down because the exurbs have creeped up around them, and people complained about the noise, which to me is tantamount to people knowingly moving in next to a nightclub and then complaining about the loud music. Easier access to silencers is an one simple solution to this problem, as they don't make the guns Hollywood quiet, but they do make them 'don't disturb the neighbors' quiet.

They are not «Laws» to begin with, but merely decrees, regardless if someone calls it a Law. I could sail out in a Boat, find a Deserted Island, name it Heaven, but that does not make the Island actually Heaven. Most of the people of the United States, including police and judge themselves, HAVE NEVER READ THEIR CONSTITUTIONS!

Gun suppressors aren't like the "silencers" you see in the movies. They muffle the sound of a gun being fired, but they don't take a loud "BANG BANG" and turn it into a quiet "pew pew". Instead, they just take the volume down a notch. If someone shoots a suppressed firearm where they're not supposed to, people are still going to hear it.

I don't see the point in banning them. If anything, I've heard recreational shooters use them to help mitigate hearing loss, which imo is a GOOD thing.

Fascinating and a good argument for a libertarian perspective. All the arguments I have heard raised against suppressors are about their being used for murder, as if not having a suppressor was an effective deterrent in places where there are many shootings.

You can only really silence subsonic projectiles, like the silent carbine or welrod.

The real trick with those two wasn't so much that they were subsonic, though that helps, but a truly huge suppressor in the case of the Delisle silent carbine, and the use of leather and rubber "wipes" in the Welrod, which expanded behind the bullet to seal in the expanding gasses, but quickly wore out and had to be replaced. I've always been rather fond of those two designs as examples of wartime ingenuity, the Delisle was MacGuyvered together from pieces of an SMLE, a Thompson sub-machine gun, a 1911 pistol, and the custom built suppressor, while the Welrod was basically SOE's idea of a silenced zip gun. I always wanted to build my own versions of each, if the law passes, I just might.

You'll see that quite often when you argue guns with people, a lot of arguments about possibilities that are actually quite unlikely when examined. Another one you see from time to time is bans on .50 caliber rifles, which at 5 feet long and 35lbs, to say nothing of the $2500-8500 price tag, are hardly the first choice of the average criminal, who rarely needs to assassinate other criminals at long ranges through barriers.

Down more than a notch, actually. Even more so with something subsonic like a .45 ACP. Suppressed centerfire rifles (.308 comes to mind) are still pretty noisy but nothing like un-suppressed. Suppressors not only cut the noise level but also alters the sound so that it doesnt sound like gunfire to the causal listener. Even if they hear it they won't immediately think GUN.

If they deregulated them to the point where I could buy one with no more legal difficultly than a handgun I might get one for one of my .45's just for shits-n-giggles. Personally, I like the sound of un-suppressed gunfire but sometimes it would be cool to shoot something suppressed that actually belongs to me.

I used to work with Chicken Little type that discovered that a .50 BMG rifle could be bought like any other rifle and what thier capabilities were. His concern (near panic) was that some right winger (he was a liberal) could just go buy one and engage Obama from 1+ mile away with it as if it were easy to hit anything at that distance.

I had to explain to him and others present that shooting a rifle, especially at those distances, was much more complex than just a mouse click. I explained the rifle's capability doesn't mean much without a skilled operator behind it. I went on to explain the effects of trajectory, gyroscopic drift, wind drift, ambient air density, Coriolis effect, etc. Add to that that the wind drift may vary between the shooter and intended target due to structures and land features that disrupt and channel air flow. Add to that the target could very likely move just enough from the time the shot breaks to when the projectile arrives to cause a clean miss. Basically, the factors that have to be taken into account in making a shot at those distances. Of course, none of this had ever occurred to him. He just assumed that you point the rifle in the general direction and the demons or whatever would take over and fly the bullet to its target.

Chicken Little seemed a little calmed by all that and it's just as well, otherwise he might have actually called the secret service and given them the names of all the right wing gun owners he knew, including me.

So ignorant! Everybody knows you need one of those special DARPA rounds to summon the guidance demons.

Suppressors don't work like Hollywood has you believe so banning surpressors doesn't make any logical sense.

It seems that by sound alone, many times I hear in news stories that people in the midst of mass shootings or witnesses to shootings in general can't recognize the sound of gunfire to begin with, and often mistake it as firecrackers going off. I can't see how a surpressor is going to affect public safety for the worse other than protecting eardrums of those who use firearms.

Suppressors where part of a package deal along with selective fire weapons, sawed off shotguns, sawed off rifles, and destructive devices known as the National Firearms Act of 1934 (a.k.a. NFA). I've surmised that the NFA became law primarily to give the ATF something more to do to justify its existence after prohibition ended in '33.