Posted on 09/26/2012 9:08:05 AM PDT by marktwain
I recently had the pleasure of touring the Utah facility where Silencerco and SWR sound suppressors for firearms are manufactured. I toured my first arms plant in the late 1960s and many since, and I’ve never seen a manufacturing facility cleaner or more modern than this one. Their approach to their product is just as clean and modern.
They want to make silencers more readily available to law-abiding citizens. I for one have no problem with that at all.
Before Silencerco absorbed SWR, those companies joined two other firms to create the American Silencer Association. Most of the general public, and even many shooters, are unaware that these devices are legal to own in most states, though it involves going through some legal hoops, and a $200 government fee.
ASA maintains a full-time lobbyist to work in several directions. At the state level, to make it legal for law abiding citizens to have silencers in the jurisdictions where it isn’t now. And, to make it legal to hunt with them, which is not the case in many states. At the national level, the association wants you able to buy one without having to pay $200 to the Federal government for approval, and hopefully streamline the whole process.
Suppressors can be life-savers in emergency shootings inside buildings. Police officers and citizens fending off home intruders are at risk for some hearing loss when they fire powerful weapons in close quarters with their ears unprotected. During the fight, loud gunfire can keep you from hearing something that might make the difference between life and death. Hunters firing high powered rifles without ear protection often notice their ears ringing for some time thereafter, a sign of hearing damage.
(Excerpt) Read more at backwoodshome.com ...
This issue is finally coming to a head. There is no logic or reason that gun mufflers should not be available in the local hardware store for $75, as they are in Finland.
The Supreme court in Finland ruled that it was a constitutional right to be able to construct, sell, or trade silencers.
You know we have a real problem when most European nations have less restrictive gun laws in this area than the United States.
Suppressed weapons would be quieter, removing this complaint.
I was once in a position where I had to fire a .45 inside a closed room. No hearing protection. It hurts like being hit in the head with a stick.
I'm for removing all laws dealing with supressors.
/johnny
I’ve ordered and received my extra barrel for my Beretta Model 87....I’m waiting on the back ordered slide.
When I have both, they get shipped off to get the barrel threaded. I then start the process for getting the silencer....I’m expecting at least a 1 year wait...
“It hurts like being hit in the head with a stick.”
Thanks for the info. I kinda figured as much. I carried my M1911 .45 while clearing tunnels and always wondered how bad it would be if I needed to fire it. I figured busting an eardrum or feeling like I’d been whacked in the head with a 2x4 was bound to be better than the alternative... :-)
Thankfully, I never did find out.
In Europe you are encouraged to buy a suppressor so that you will be less of a noise problem at the range.
I was in a small indoor range and had a .45 fired close to me without ear protection. Everything sounded like the adults from Charlie Brown for the next 45 minutes.
Back before they messed things up lots of folks used them so they wouldn’t annoy others around them. In some places they were required.
Silencers are legal in Europe. Go figure, we have draconian laws about them and they freely hunt with them.
P.S.
We have the NRA to thank for the 1934 NFA law that did this to us. They are proud to admit they backed the law, helped write it, and got it through Congress. Only recently did the NRA even support the idea of the Second Amendment. Prior to just recently, the NRA only backed guns “for sporting purposes”.
Small correction to your post. It’s the 1934 NFA. You’re thinking of the 1932 Uniform Machine Gun Act which has been repealed or struck down as Unconstitutional in every state it was enacted in except Virginia.
Sound suppressors, silencers being a misnomer, are also the most effective muzzle brake available, if properly constructed, they have a significant positive impact on accuracy, especially over longer range.
There is no reason to have sound suppressors on the NFA. They need to be removed as do AOWs, SBR’s and SBS’s.
I live on a private airpark that has been here for decades.
New golf communities spring up around and the folks move in and bitch about plane noise.
“Can’t we do something to close that thing down to stop the airplane noise”?
One more thing Joe,
Across the road from the entrance to our airpark is Port St. Lucie City property. This here is the county and we have several very nice ranges right here.
It is legal to shoot in the county, not the city.
Roosevelt said that he would not support the law without the aid of the NRA. The original law included handguns along with suppressors and machine guns, and short barreled rifles and shotguns.
NRA Members (said to be lead by Elmer Keith) revolted against the handgun provision, and the NRA came out against it. That provision lost in the house by one vote, I am told. That is how close we came to losing the Second Amendment in 1934.
Roosevelt was our version of Mussolini, who was widely admired in “Progressive” circles.
A handful is not most. That's a totally inaccurate statement. The UK, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden etc, all have more restrictive gun laws than the USA.
Gotcha beat. I was in the cab of a 1980’s GMC Sierra Grande, when a .357 went off. I actually went to the ER the next day because I still couldn’t hear jack.
You know we have a real problem when most European nations have less restrictive gun laws in this area than the United States.
Melas replied:
A handful is not most. That's a totally inaccurate statement. The UK, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden etc, all have more restrictive gun laws than the USA.
Marktwain responds:
I could have been more specific, I suppose. The key is the phrase “in this area”, which I meant to refer to the regulation of suppressors.
My understanding is that in most European countries, if you can own firearms, you can easily own suppressors. That is not the case in the United States, where considerable financial and regulatory burdens make the ownership of suppressors far more difficult than the ownership of gun mufflers (suppressors).
Of course, I am open to correction.
ownership of gun mufflers (suppressors). should have been ownership of guns.
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