[bitterohiogunclinger]

I'm an avid gun rights advocate. The idea that “suppressors” would be or should be widely available is just plain wrong.
There is a safety factor with loud booming gunshots that alert others to the presence of active shooting, whether target practice, or hunting that can prevent persons from straying into a hazardous situation. I've witnessed numerous neophyte shooters at a public range start to head downrange to examine or replace a target without waiting for the range to clear first. Poachers would be in “hog heaven” if they were freely able to use suppressors to hide their activity. I concede that their use on a persons own property for the purpose of varmint removal has some merit. I really don't like the idea that “government stormtroopers” are exempted either.

[muawiyah]

The "poachers" in my neighborhood simply use stealth and knives to take all the out of season deer they wish.

BTW, we have something like 150,000 wild deer in an urban county, and these efforts are applauded.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"I've witnessed numerous neophyte shooters at a public range start to head downrange to examine or replace a target without waiting for the range to clear first."

Another reason why you will never see me at a public shooting range...

[Atlas Sneezed]

There is a safety factor with loud booming gunshots that alert others to the presence of active shooting, whether target practice, or hunting that can prevent persons from straying into a hazardous situation. I’ve witnessed numerous neophyte shooters at a public range start to head downrange to examine or replace a target without waiting for the range to clear first. Poachers would be in “hog heaven” if they were freely able to use suppressors to hide their activity.

---

As far as range safety, it really doesn’t matter whether there was a big noise right before some moron gets shot. More importantly, suppressors don’t make guns silent. They sound like a loud cap gun, or an air-powered nailer. They are loud enough to cause those with delicate hearing (or good sense) to consider hearing protection. Even a suppressed 22LR is loud enough to cause my wife to insist I close my office door before shooting varmints out the door, because the noise is unpleasantly startling in the next room. At the public range, someone with hearing protection is as likely to hear a conventional shot as someone without hearing protection is to hear a suppressed shot.

Finally, poaching is already illegal, and poachers can already use suppressors, legal or not. We’re just talking about eliminating the silly $200 tax and background check, not making poaching legal.

[BCR #226]

Total bunk. Sound suppressors lower the sound of the muzzle blast, hence the term suppressor. They don’t make a gun totally silent. Poachers aren’t going to use them when they can use a more silent tool called a bow to poach.

Please stop using the anti’s rhetoric... It does nothing but hurt all gun rights.

Mike

[Technogeeb]

I'm an avid gun rights advocate. The idea that “suppressors” would be or should be widely available is just plain wrong.

You are not thinking clearly, or you have simply not thought about the issue sufficiently.

There is a safety factor with loud booming gunshots that alert others to the presence of active shooting,

Nearly all civilian shooting in the US occurs during hunting or at shooting ranges. In the case of the latter, any rational person would be aware of the activity. In the case of the former, shots would be so sparse that no noise would typically be generated prior to the shot.

In any case, there is no sane reason to restrict any device that reduces noise to levels below where hearing damage occurs, yet the law is currently written to prohibit just that. It would be trivial to pass a law allowing any device to reduce sound to below 70dB (where hearing damage would no longer occur, but any mythical benefit of the loud noise would still be present).