The obvious answer being that one would be able to kill another without being heard.
But, what about in hunting applications? Wouldn’t a supressor be advantageous in that case? Because if one were to miss, the animal they’d be hunting wouldn’t hear the gun shot, thus, it wouldn’t become startled and run off.
I’m sure Claymore mines and LAWs would make hunting easier too, but they’re not available to the general public either.
WAG: the possible negative implications of suppressors being available far, far outweights the positive implications. No cite here, but I’m assuming hunters are in the minority of gun-owners, for whom self-defence is a greater reason to own weapons. Gunshots raise the alarm. For criminals, silencers make the use of guns a “safer” prospect, less likely to draw unwelcome attention.
Secondly, suppressors/silencers are usually limited to small-calibre, short-range weapons (e.g. handguns) and specially-designed sniping weapons. I don’t think they’d really work that well with hunting rifles (I don’t even know if you can get silencers for most hunting weapons).
Vandal,
I’ll check in with the view point of a devout hunter.
Do you hunt??
A suppressor would be very unlikely to produce the effect you desire even if they could make one for the larger calibers.
1.) There is still noise made by the weapon. Even at a distant range the bullet would make enough noise to frighten the animal away. As an example of this lets take bowhunting. The only appreciable noise generated is by the arrow as it hits the brush/tree behind your intended target on a miss. The animal will (generally)bolt. Even if your arrow slips by with a minimum of noise the animal will be gone before you can think about another shot. The noise made by the air dispersion from a silencer would be more than enough to make the animal bolt.
2.) Why would you even be thinking about having to take a second shot. Your resposibility as a hunter is to make the first shot count. There are situations were a second shot is necessary(miss/anchoring shot)but these more often than not can be eliminated by making the first shot count. There is no substitute for accuracy. Practice and Patience! Make the shot a good one or DON’T TAKE IT!
3.) There is no practical application of a suppressor other than killing people with a minimum of noise.
Sorry, if this sounds preachy. I feel hunters get a bum rap but some of it is brought on us by fellow hunters who have no business in the woods, fields or marsh!
Just to be sure I am not misunderstood. I am not pointing a finger at you vandal. I do not even know if you are a hunter.
Here’s another tidbit about silencers. They’re only going to be effective if you’re using a subsonic round, such as in a handgun or machine pistol. Hunting rifle loads are (usually) supersonic. Therefore, bad for hunting, but good for killing people. Keep 'em illegal.
No, Sledman, I do not hunt.
But if I were to take up hunting, I would inevitably suck at it in the beginning, and would obviously miss my target a lot on the first shot, in which case, a silencer would prove to be useful.
Taking your point though, as well as JSexton’s and mattk’s, I see how they would not be of much use.
You’re right. Silencers have nothing to do with hunting. They are military-type equipment, useful for military-type applications. But then the Second Amendment doesn’t have anything to do with hunting either. It is intended to guarantee the right of the people to keep and bear arms in a military capacity. The Citizen Militia is the civilian defense force, not a hunting club. So what’s your point? Where the hell does everybody get the idea that hunting is the only legitimate reason to own a gun, and if it ain’t for hunting it should be illegal? %!#&@$@! government & media brainwashing…sigh
Vandal:
The point is to practice on non-living targets BEFORE you actually hunt. That way, when you do draw a bead on a deer/bear/whatever, you can make the kill with one shot so that the animal doesn’t suffer.
A silencer also cuts accuracy dowm, which would make your missing even more likely. Besides, the sound, even if not clearly a “gun-shot noise”, would still be loud enuf to scare your intended prey.
So, a “silencer” : has less accuracy
(or a silenced gun): has less power and
: is not all that silent.
Not much use for hunting, eh? The only time I know silencers were used for hunting, was to hunt rats with .22s
before the '20s, the silencer being used to not scare the nieghbors.
I think silencers are sometimes used in hunting. I have heard of poachers building homemade silencers so that they can trespass on other people’s property and not be heard.
Not that that matters. We still don’t have a lawful use for a silencer.
I read somewhere, a long time ago, that silencers are legal in Europe. Of course, it’s so difficult to get a gun over there, that there are probably very few of them owned.
I don’t hunt (I have this thing against taking lives), but I’ve been known to go “plinking”. I wouldn’t mind having a silencer just for the heck of it. I think it actually is legal to own silencers in the U.S. They’re treated like machine guns. You need to have a background investigation (similar to getting a Secret clearance) and pay a $200 transfer tax to the BATF. You also need to live in a state that allows them. I don’t know for sure, but I think Nevada, Montana and Oregon allow them. California does and many (most?) other states do not.
Joe_Cool sez
OK, I don’t want to turn this into yet another 2nd Amendment debate, but I just have to answer this. Joe, would you like me to amend my statement? Fine. Keeping weapons for self defense is fine. The ability to pick people off silently from 500 yards is not, IMHO, self defense. It is a job best left for professionals, not “civilian defense forces”. I realize you and I will still differ on this, but I wanted my point of view plainer.
End hijack.
MC - I’m considering getting a .22 supressor for some of the same reasons you are but you may consider an alternative, electronic hearing protection. Peltor is the most common brand but I’ve got Dillon’s new model which I think works even better. Speech sounds completely normal but gunfire sounds like it does on TV. Each earpiece has separate mic and electronics so you still hear in stereo and with the volume turned up you can hear extremely faint sounds without amplifying the loud ones. $135 is a darn sight cheaper than any supressor.
If I do get a supressor for a .22 I expect it to cost at least $500 for the transfer tax, one of the less expensive supressors and installation.
I have heard a “military” silencer on a 9mm pistol. IMO, there is no way I could mistake it for anything other than a gunshot, and the silencing effect might best be approximated by lightly pressing your fingers on you ears. I guess it might work somewhat if you were in a basement, or silenced it by other additional means, but I’m not sure. Needless to say, I was very unimpressed.
I know a guy who made a “potato silencer”, under suggestion by his own father. It involved hollowing out a firm, green potato and screwing it onto the end of the barrel. He did this with a .22 rifle, and the first shot had a shock wave that absolutely pulverized the potato, and blew pieces of it all over himself. Pretty damn funny. Oh yes, it didn’t silence anything.
Not that this has ANYTHING to do with the thread but it is something I read recently in a rather dated (1985) spy-type book called ‘Spygame’ that talks about cutting off the small end of a two liter plastic bottle (so the barrel just barely fits inside). The bottle gets destroyed, of course, after one shot, but it supposedly makes a decent disposable silencer.
Or there’s always the mafia/ hit man ‘shoot through a pillow’ method.
That is correct. Silencers are legal in Florida as long as they are obtained legally through federal means. (ie. tax stamp, etc) I see them all the time at the gun range. Many private citizens own them. They use them for their machine guns 
Someone poted earlier about putting an airgun silencer on a firearm. I have two questions about that. One is: Aren’t airguns quiet already? Two is: The only airguns I know of fire little bbs or pellets. If you somehow fit this silencer on a handgun, the bullets would not fit out of it anyway. Maybe there is some kind of airgun I am not familiar with.
Bear_Nenno - Some of the more powerful air guns have a fair amount of noise and that can be suppressed. The problem with removable supressors is that they could potentially be used on firearms and the ATF doesn’t want to allow any slack in that area. Most bb/pellet air guns are .177 calibers (a lot in .22 as well) but that’s also rifle caliber. No, you can’t supress the supersonic shock wave but that can be suprisingly small compared to the muzzle blast which can be supressed. There are a lot of supressors manufactured specifically for rifles. Here’s a site in Finland that has some good info. http://www.guns.connect.fi/rs/assaultr.html
One way to get around the detachable airgun supressor problem is to built it integrated with the barrel. That’s commonly done for several types of .22 rifles and handguns. A barrel and supressor are permanently installed inside a tube that replaces the original barrel. A supressor like this way can only be used on the type of weapon it was designed for.
I just found this that talks about the history of supressors and legal control of them in the US. Closer to the OP I think.
Actually, you can get a reusable silencer from many hardware stores. It’s called a muffler. Like you’d put on a little Briggs & Stratton engine. A drill, a hose clamp, and a muffler, and you’re set!
BUT!!! Having any sort of silencing device without a permit is a violation of Federal law (usually the State law, too). Even the 2-litre bottle is illegal if it is attached, or can be attached, to your firearm. Whether or not you agree with the law, it is the law. If you don’t like it, get it changed (good luck, after Gore becomes President!). It’s fun to speculate and chat about the hardware, but don’t try this at home.
Apologies all around for continuing the hijack, but you’re still missing the point. The OP asks the question “why are gun suppressors illegal?” Then he goes on to make the point that there may be an additional usefulness in hunting. I never claimed that a silencer is useful for self-defense, and I don’t make that claim now. They are not useful for self-defense. But they should still be legal.
My point is that the right to be armed is one of the self-evident truths that are protected in the Bill of Rights. Hunting and self-defense are not the primary reasonfor the Constitution’s guarantee that we won’t be denied the right to arm ourselves (though very important, especially since the police aren’t required to protect you in any way…it’s not their job). Its purpose is for national security (“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state…”), and that can only be accomplished militarily, and ideally with military equipment. Unless you think they meant security of the free state from a bunch of deer. Though I think that’s rather unlikely.
So my point relating to the OP is that suppressors should NOT be illegal, because you should not be required to relate equipment to hunting in order to justify owning it. Killing people (under special circumstances, of course) is a legitimate use for firearms, suppressors, etc., because that’s the reason the right was protected (not granted!).
I’m not trying to have a 2nd amendment debate either. It’s just that the 2nd amendment is particularly relevant to the legality or taxation of military equipment such as a suppressor, since it mentions specifically a civilian military force.
anyway, I’m done hijacking the now hijacked thread, which seems to be about whether you should hunt with a silencer, instead of why they are (or whether they should be) illegal.
Sorry to ruffle your feathers, JSexton.