Would it be better for us shooters if guns made less noise? Would firearms be more popular and less feared amongst the general population if they did not make such noise when fired?
It seems silly but I was thinking about how people react to the sound of gun fire. Most if not all become alarmed by the fact that a gun is being fired and that it is making noise, with litle regard to the situation in which it is being fired. As in: "OMG, did you hear that? Was that a GUN?" and "Geez, what are they firing there, a cannon? Those people are nuts!". It appears that the louder the report the more anxiety is produced. If firing a gun with a weak report people usually don't get as worked up. I get the impression that guns are scary to most people because thay make scary noises.
More importantly it would be in every shooter's interest that most if not all firearms came with a threaded barrel and a sound suppresor in the box, as a legal requirement, because it is a health consideration as well. If a study were done on the matter I think it would be very easy to prove that we shooters need sound suppresors to protect our hearing, because standard hearing protection products just don't cut it. Hearing damage is cummulative. So even if you get only a little every time you shoot, it still adds up in the end. I know a couple of older guys that have been shooting most of their lives, mostly competitively with hearing protection on, and they say that they have suffered considerable hearing damage despite the use of hearing protection. This concerns me.
Do you think that we could get sound suppresors to be unrestricted (and cheaper) items on grounds of health issues? They are a safety feature after all...right?
It seems silly but I was thinking about how people react to the sound of gun fire. Most if not all become alarmed by the fact that a gun is being fired and that it is making noise, with litle regard to the situation in which it is being fired. As in: "OMG, did you hear that? Was that a GUN?" and "Geez, what are they firing there, a cannon? Those people are nuts!". It appears that the louder the report the more anxiety is produced. If firing a gun with a weak report people usually don't get as worked up. I get the impression that guns are scary to most people because thay make scary noises.
More importantly it would be in every shooter's interest that most if not all firearms came with a threaded barrel and a sound suppresor in the box, as a legal requirement, because it is a health consideration as well. If a study were done on the matter I think it would be very easy to prove that we shooters need sound suppresors to protect our hearing, because standard hearing protection products just don't cut it. Hearing damage is cummulative. So even if you get only a little every time you shoot, it still adds up in the end. I know a couple of older guys that have been shooting most of their lives, mostly competitively with hearing protection on, and they say that they have suffered considerable hearing damage despite the use of hearing protection. This concerns me.
Do you think that we could get sound suppresors to be unrestricted (and cheaper) items on grounds of health issues? They are a safety feature after all...right?
