ok, it's a dumb question, but why are gun supressors illegal?

Great Debates
41

Dan says:

You overlooked two things. First is a proviso I added to my last post:

Bolding mine

I could have also stated: “assuming, as well, that it is manufactured correctly [with precision]”

Bullets, low- or hich velocity, will also disperse at the extremity of their range, not just “drop” down on the target; even from a bench in a closed range with no crosswind, unless you are firing an accurized (match grade) barrel, with match grade ammunition, precision spaced to the chamber and either bedded to match grade frame/stock or completely free-floating.

The reason for this dispersal (on your friend’s Walther, my Colt, my Taurus and my Springfield Arms) is that the barrel is not isolated mechanically from the frame; the differences [tolerances] are measured in the .001 of a mm range, but will translate into some dispersal, especially in short barreled pistols. This is much less noticeable in manual action rifles, but still prevalent in semi-autos.

Remove the slide mechanism and examine where the barrel is attached to the lower receiver (at the barrel lug); examine as well (if your Walther has one; my Taurus doesn’t, but both my .45s do) the barrel bushing. Notice that the barrel has some travel; maybe not much. The better the weapon, the less “travel” the barrel will have, but if there is any at all you will get projectile dispersion at the extremity of you projectile’s range.

Reducing the muzzle velocity (and subsequently the weapon’s effective range) will reduce the range at which dispersion becomes more readily evident.

ExTank

42

Ok, I hadn’t considered the post-exit gas behind the bullet. But I would have thought that even though you lose a little bit of range, you’d gain a little bit of accuracy, since after the bullet exits the barrel, it’s still being pushed but no longer being guided. So with your barrel accessory (silencer, muzzle brake, flash suppressor, etc) venting the gas away from the bullet, wouldn’t that cut down on turbulence and let the bullet fly a straighter, smoother path? Or am I still missing something else?

Thanks for the correction. But I don’t understand why that happens…do you happen do know the mechanics behind the louder report?

Wouldn’t that be nice…We can wish…

43

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Joe_Cool *

Thanks for the correction. But I don’t understand why that happens…do you happen do know the mechanics behind the louder report?

[QUOTE]

Ok ExTank basically beat me to this. The muzzle brake does not necessarily make it louder as much as it disburses the noise in a different direction. Be it the side, up or back to some degree. This creates the illusion of a louder gun to the shooter and the people next to the shooter. Anyone in front of the shooter would not be as aware(though this is a rather unsafe place to be). However they do give a distinctive crack to the rifle. A friend has a .338 Win Mag with a brake that will cause me to walk directly behind him while he is shooting. Safest/quietest place but still noticably louder than any rifle without the brake.

Criminals commit crimes is true. I can’t argue with that. However, I believe the threat of being caught does deter some people from doing things. More so in this case we are talking about poaching at night. Darkness alone makes people feel bolder, with the added security of a substantially quieter shot they may go for it.

We will always have the guy/gal who poaches whether we have silencers or not but I would rather not give people a tool that will embolden the hesitant among them to poach game.

I agreed a while ago that if I was intent on killing someone a silencer would not be on my list of necessities it just makes it easier to get away with.

I will defend my rights and your rights to own guns. I am an active/avid hunter. I personally own 10 guns and like my fishing rods have different guns for different situations. I do not own all of the guns i want yet. All the guns I need… probably…all I want…not even close. I do not want to see restrictions on the purchase of guns by law abiding citizens but i also believe there are law abiding citizens who have no business owning a gun because they neither understand or respect it.

Al Gore did a quick slip into his speech tonight about gun control while trying to appease the gun owners but used Columbine to justify it. i forget exactly what it was but it had to do with background checks and requiring trigger locks.

While from a home defense standpoint trigger locks are dumb anyone with kids better have them or you are an IDIOT!!! I know you didn’t have them when you were a kid and neither did I but things are different now. Your kid might have been taught to respect it but that doesn’t mean his playmate will.

See like right now(to slightly digress) if I was of such an ilk and had a silencer I could lean out the window and shoot the deer that is snorting in my front yard right now and no one would know. Except you guys of course…

Anyway, we have a lot of responsibility as gun owners. We need to stick together on a lot of issues but we also need to police ourselves and our friends in regards to these things. People have a negative image of us and demanding 50 shot clips, silencers, and assault weapons ain’t helping. People are led by emotion and we need to face that. The image of a dead kid is more powerful than that of the NRA member. We know the problem isn’t the gun but a lot of people don’t know that. They see the gun as the cause.

I could not agree more with you about the Gun Control Legislator’s having no clue about guns…or not caring because they get press time for authoring their legislation despite the general lack of merit behind it.

Gentlemen it is 12:45am, I will see you in the morning.

44

First off, Hi-cap mags, silencers, thumbhole stocks, bayonet lugs(Fer cryin out loud! when was the last time you heard of a gang thug stabing someone with a fucking bayonet?) All that crap and silencers do not connote more violence and crime. Full auto? sure ban that, No practical use, and yeah lots more crime and violence. But If you are worried about noise from your .22 when your killing rodents in your back yard, there are 2 bullets from a manufacturer that are remarkably quiet. Aguila SSS (Sniper Sub Sonic) has a minimal powder charge, and a big slow bullet that packs a goodly sized whallop. Plenty to dispatch of rats rabbits and squirrls. The other is from Aguila as well, I cant remeber the name, but it is a 20 grain bullet(Extremly light weight and small) with no powder, just the primer, It has about enough to dispatch rats and mice, also it only sounds like a roll cap going off.

Just my opinion

Alex

45

The silencer was apparantly a factory job, we were trying out a siezed weapon. But again, 25 feet is no-where near the “extremity of that guns range”, and the accuracy was less. I have also read that silencers were well known to reduce accuracy. The sound was still loud enuf to startle any deer I have ever seen. And this was on a piddling .380!

Again, I do not want to debate legality/morality of silencers, but the query was asked if they have hunting utility. In normal, legal, hunting; the answer is no. Even if they only reduce acuracy a bit, (if properly mounted), they require the use of sub-sonic rounds, which are rather low powered for most hunting, and then they reduce that energy again by cutting the MV.

46
      • First point, as to the subject of airguns, the reason that US shooters try to get airguns with the silencers intact is that the suppressor acts as a muzzle brake, and the gun is often tuned to shoot a particular pellet well with the suppressor intact. These guns often have very poor accuracy without the original mass intact. Add the fact that some of these guns cost near/over $1500, and it becomes a major annoyance.
  • Second, suppressors do not decrease accuracy or range, as long as they don’t touch the projectile or allow muzzle exhaust to blow off unevenly. Some guns use an integral barrel/suppressor that shortens the effective length of the barrel, so that “normal” velocity ammo is reduced to sub-sonic velocities (many SMG’s are done this way so you don’t need special “subsonic” ammo), but that’s a design choice of the arms manufacturer; it has nothing to do with the silencer itself. -And some guns aren’t that accurate to begin with, and adding more weight onto the barrel doesn’t always help. The most effective use for a suppressor is on a bolt-action rifle, as most maximum-reduction suppressors are kinda bulky to put on a pistol anyway; I saw one source that said for a .22LR the recommended size was 2" x 10". For a 9mm, the size was 2.5" x 12", and for a .45, the size was an almost-silly 3" x 14". Those were given as minimum sizes; you were advised to go larger if it was still practical. That’s for a very quiet gun, but it’s also one too big to hide in yer trousers real well.
  • Thirdly, even though (in the US) there are no laws that address the subject of airgun or paintball-gun [non-firearm] suppressors, there isn’t any way to legally build such a suppressor without a federal permit; this has been firmly established by the airgun and paintball communities.
    The BATF has already said as much. Any suppressing device, or the components thereof, that could be fitted and will function on any firearm even once, qualifies as needing a permit.
  • And by the by, airgun calibers are .177, .20, .22, .25, .30, .32, 9mm, .375, .50 and a few other black powder calibers. - MC
47

Joe_Cool says:

[sarcasm]
So that’s why Western Europe has those atrociously high crime rates. Wait - we haven’t ? Perhaps there’s a hole in the reasoning somewhere, then.
[/sarcasm]

OK, I know I’ve promised umpteen times not to post in these debates again, but the above argument is simply doesn’t hold water. The existence of democratic countries with low crime rates and strict weapon laws demonstrates that rather clearly, I think.

While I salute the “I’ll take responsibility for my own safety”-attitude, I wouldn’t dream of voting for easieer availability of guns where I live. I’m quite happy that guns are rarely seen in public life and, for that matter, rarely used for criminal purposes as well.

However, I do believe you can legislate to keep most criminals unarmed most of the time. Criminals care what laws they break, so legislation should focus on how to make the average criminal decide “Naaah, ain’t worth the risk” before bringing his gun along. But that’s another debate.

And this time, I WILL shut up on the subject.

S. Norman

48

While I respect your opinion and your right to express it as you please, I have to say that I’m relieved to live in the United States where the worst I can reasonably expect is maybe a gunshot or 2 (or 41 of them if I were black). It is extremely soothing to know that I will likely never be the victim of a car bombing, or a guerilla skirmish between the army and one of the myriad bands of rebels in Europe. I’m glad that I have the rights to speak my mind, practice whatever religious faith I may choose (NOT C of E), bear my arms legally (for now), take responsibility for my own safety and that of my family (if I had one), be secure from police searches except on presentation of a warrant obtained on probable cause demonstrated under oath, and drive on the right side of the road.

Anyway, given a choice between government-supplied safety & security and Liberty, I choose the latter and gladly supply my own safety.

49

My father owned a hunting store and a lot of land filled with deer. We were well aware of a lot of poachers. In fact, one of our customers once had 9 deer hanging at his hunting camp outside of deer season. For the record, my father hunted at night often and used both a .22 mag and arrows with the Pod on them (for those of you unfamiliar with this, it is a small carrier for SCC, or succinocholine, right behind the broadhead. It will kill a deer in seconds no matter where you shoot him.)

If you want a silent weapon with a decent range and good killing power, a compound crossbow is the ticket. Add the Pod and you are really in business. The problem with poaching from a car is the spotlight. They are too damn visible.

In New york, spotlighting from a car with any weapon in the car is illegal. Crossbows are illegal. Hunting at night is illegal. Spotlighting is illegal. Using any gun other than a shotgun is illegal.

And while my idiot father rants and raves about the damn poachers, he chew on some venison that he shot at midnight in his back yard if February.

50

Same applies in Wisconsin with some slight differences.

We have certain counties that are shotgun/muzzleloader only the rest are open to the use of rifles. And that muzzleloader can not have a scope with any magnification!

Spotlighting is legal unless you have a gun, bow, arrow, or bullet in the car. Any one of these things will get you fined. Yep that’s right just a bullet no gun while spotlighting and you are pinched.

Hunting at night is illegal for most game. Not all. Raccoons etc.

51

Sled, I guess part of my point that I did not specify was that by the time you go out poaching, you are usually breaking about 3-4 laws to begin with. Having a supressor would just be a little icing on the cake. If you are willing to start poaching seriously, the supressor would be a minor issue. But I doubt anyone is using them to poach. I never heard of it.

52

I personally think if someone felt the need to be a bell tower wacko, they would want to make as much noise as they could.

Myself. I own a few guns and I keep one loaded with sub sonic rounds just in case I do have to fire a shot off in the house. Being a musician and sound designer, the last thing I want to do is risk my hearing.

I would love to have a silencer for target shooting. I hate yelling at my buds wearing headphones or ear plugs at the range.

My $.02

53
      • After consulting the semi-hillbilly at work, he agrees; serious poachers leave their guns at home and set illegal trap lines. - MC
54

Again, you want accuracy for target shooting. AND you want the gun to hit about where it would hit in the field. In countries where silencers are legal, they do not use them for target (indoor range) shooting, for just these reasons.

55
      • If you left the silencer on all the time, it would be accurate for these reasons, and quieter as well. - MC
56

MC: no. The group size is increased, thus relative accuracy is less. Yes, you would know that the gun is only accurate to within 8", instead of 2", but you would not be able to hit vitals as often. Next, the power is greatly reduced, so you would be wounding instead of killing your prey, and sportsmen don’t do that. The idea is to kill the prey, quickly and humanely, not allow it to get away and crawl somewhere to die, slowly. Again, where silencers are legal, folks do not use them to hunt big game, nor on the range.

57
      • Silencers (properly built and permanently mounted) do not cause inaccuracy or loss of power at all. - They are quite common on high-powered hunting rifles in Sweden, Norway and Finland. Three countries where, not coincidentally, it is considerably easier to own a silencer than in the US. Silencer use on firearms was very common in Britain, silencer use with airguns there still is. - MC
58

I appologize if someone mentioned this and I did not catch it. However, if memory serves, there are only two guns that are publicly known of that had no visible muzzleflash, and no (as far as humans go) audible shots. Terribly big and bulky thing with all sorts of microscopic holes to allow gas to escape. It was accurate enough, and was produced in rifle and pistol version, though the pistol was about the size of a small rifle.

59

Are you sure that you’re being sarcastic? Maybe you’re just an idiot.

As I’ve posted before, the UK, that bastion of saftey from guns, has higher crime rates than the US. In 1998 there were twice the burglaries in the UK than the US, and 50% of those burglaries were “hot” (people were in the home at the time it was being burglarized) compared to 13% in the US.

[sarcasm]
Gee, it’s sooooo much safer in Western Europe!
[/sarcasm]

Maybe you happen to live in a part of Western Europe where guns are illegal and there actually is less crime. Good for you. There are a few parts of the US like that too, and they might be as big as whatever county you’re from. That doesn’t mean that the whole country is the same way, just like is doesn’t mean that all of Europe is some kind of idealistic safe haven because guns are less common. It most definitely is not.

60

SledMan accurately answered the question of why firearms with muzzle brakes and porting appear louder: dispersion/redirection of gasses along a different axis, (namely the side and towards the rear), making the weapon appear louder to those standin to the side or rear.

Daniel: having not seen and fired the weapon with and without the silencer device, I can only begin to speculate about what is degrading the performance of the weapon so badly. Joe brought up a point I hadn’t considered, about muzzel gasses in the silencer device.

It’s possible (and I’m purely spitballin’ here) that if the bore of the device is signifigantly larger than the diameter of the bullet (and considering the forces in play here, “signifigant” is no more .025 inch range), there may be some “roiling” or “turbulence” as the bullet passes through the various baffles, causing a wobble in the bullet.

Spiny: You’re (again) overlooking the vast cultural and historical diffences between European countries and the U.S.A. Never before on this planet has there been a nation/culture where the people had so much unfettered freedom during the developmental stages of that country.

If you can’t see them, I can’t explain them to you. What’s happening here is something that will take time and education to solve, not feel-good panacea gun control and sound-bite politically correct slogans.

Nor the abridgement or infringement of fundamental liberties.

ExTank