You’ve fallen prey to the depiction of suppressors in the movies. They do not ‘silence’ guns, they simply drop the volume somewhat when the gun is shot. The SILENT gun used in movies is for dramatic purposes. Also, bullets fly faster than the speed of sound. When they break the sound barrier, there is a crack, like the sonic boom of a jet fighter or the crack of a whip. Even if the suppressor completely silenced the firing of the gun, the bullet itself would be quite loud.
As others have suggested, check out some videos on Youtube. A suppressor would be nice to help protect the hearing of the person taking target practice, or hunting.
Ah, I see Wesley Clark has covered the subsonic round and homemade silencer angle. So it seems that silencer restrictions don’t really prevent crimes, it just makes the shooting hobby, and hunting, louder for law-abiding citizens.
It’s probably hard for someone outside the US to understand how tightly gun issues and politics (therefore, elections) are entwined. Here’s an (anecdotal) example I encountered recently. I was discussing hunting season for deer here in Indiana with a truck driver. I’m not a hunter. There are separate seasons for bow and guns. I mentioned that Indiana had recently allowed high powered rifles for deer hunting. Previously it was restricted to shotguns (usually using rifled slugs), certain handgun calibers and muzzle loaders. This was because most hunting in Indiana takes place in patches of woods interspersed with farms, houses, roads etc. Those types of firearms are capable of dispatching a deer but do not carry very long distances in the event of a missed shot. Many of the high powered rifle cartridges can not only carry long distances but penetrate a lot of things. It seems kind of dangerous to allow them, to me. The driver told me he had talked to a game warden and was told that no one at that department thought it was a good idea to allow high powered hunting but that it was pushed through the legislature by politicians looking to up their “2nd Amendment cred” and were catering to all the people that were stocking up on ARs and other centerfire rifles and now wanted to go shoot stuff with them. With the ascendancy of conservative politics here I predict politicians feverishly trying to “out-conservative” their competitors by pushing ever more deregulation of guns.
Here’s an article.
I should have read the article before my previous post. The most common AR cartridge, .223 is not approved for deer hunting and shouldn’t be, because it’s considered insufficient for deer. The AR platform can be configured for .300 and .308 which are on the list of approved rounds.
The other thing that occurred to me after after I posted is that you can shoot anything you can legally own as long as you are not hunting, so I don’t know what difference it makes if you allow the calibers on the approved list for hunting.
I’ll have to think on this some more. :smack:
Here’s a good video of a suppressed 9mm pistol being fired. The shooting starts around 8:00. The whole video is pretty interesting and the shooter has a lot of experience with suppressors and discusses some of the drawbacks of suppressors.
He shoots without the suppressor at around 13:50.
I’m not sure if much is being done at the federal or state levels but cable television has sure helped from what various Class III smiths and dealers have told me. Before shows like Sons of Guns and some of the other various Discovery/History channel shows, average people figured the paperwork and all made it virtually impossible. TV time has made it look not just possible but attainable and fun for anyone with the cash who wants to invest the time and dollars. Five years ago I could have named you one place to legally purchase Class III firearms or accessories in say a two hour drive - now I drive past two on a fairly regular basis and know where three others are within say an hour.
I love Gregs videos. And he himself seems like a heck of a guy, someone you’d love to have a beer or a lemonade with. I’ll bet he was a favorite teacher for a lot of middle school kids.
In fairness, in the suppressed 9mm video I linked, he is using standard velocity ammo. With subsonic ammo it would be much quieter. Subsonic ammo is loaded to be slower and therefore “less powerful”.
In our last legislative session, suppressors were made to be legally purchased here in Iowa. This went into effect on 7/1 and was led by the R’s in the House and passed in a D Senate.
FWIW, I’ve heard a suppressed .22 firing sub-sonic rounds that was so quiet that the only sounds where the action and the thwack of the bullet hitting the target. It was much quieter than my air rifle.
I’d say about 10% or more of GOP voters are single issue gun voters. Even tho they have nothing against abortion, think Trump is a clown, dont want taxes cut for the rich, and no issues with Gay marriage, etc, the thought that “Obama is going to take our guns away!!!”:rolleyes: and that "Trump may be a clown but he’ll put in proGun SCOTUS judges’ made them vote him in.
Not so much at the federal level but there’s been a lot of action at the state level. The biggest push as mentioned already is to remove restrictions against suppressors- not only because there’s no rational reason to ban them but because allowing them would be a positive good.
The next item on the gun owner’s wish list is removing restrictions on short-barreled rifles and shotguns. Right now there are truly bizarre rules on what exactly makes something a “pistol” and what makes it an SBR. Again, no rational reason to ban them and lifting those bans would free gun owners from fear of prosecution because of inane technicalities like adding a foregrip to a firearm or having it’s barrel be 1/4 inch too short.
Next on the “if wishes were horses” list would be allowing the registration of new full-auto firearms. About the only thing this would change would be to reduce their cost; comparatively few people would choose to own one even if they could.
Moving into the realm of fantasy would be abolishing the 1934 National Firearms Act altogether; but this would be a harder sell politically.