Exercising The Right
Silent Self-defense?
Ammoland.com featured an interesting essay about gun suppressors on September 15 by Tom McHale, an author who writes educational books for shooters. A suppressor is a firearm accessory that is often featured in movies. Dubbed “silencers,” they are portrayed as being able to make gunshots sound like quiet “whiffs” of noise, though they actually don’t work like that in real life. A suppressed gunshot is still loud, but the sound is reduced, which can be beneficial to a shooter who might be firing a gun without the proper hearing protection. People involved in a self-defense shooting situation who have to quickly discharge a firearm don’t have the ability to use noise-canceling headphones or earplugs.
McHale wrote that current federal law pertaining to purchasing suppressors is quite onerous and requires a lengthy waiting period, but argued that it was worth it:
If you’ve not touched off a round indoors before, hold on to your shorts. It’s loud. If you use an AR, the indoor noise level is orders of magnitude beyond loud. Deafening comes to mind. So, do you or should you care? While living through the encounter will rank far higher to me than protecting some percentage of my hearing when I’m 78, I’m not so much worried about long-term hearing impacts as the ‘here and now’ benefits. While a suppressed pistol or rifle shot indoors will still be loud (remember, Hollywood suppressor whisper noises aren’t real) you’ll stand a much better chance of being able to hear important things like family members, 911 operators on the phone, and sirens or shouts from responding officers during or after suppressed gunfire.
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