Tell me why?

[ArmedBear]

Makeshift silencers, easily good enough to walk "into a house and killing off a family, robbing them, then leaving without anyone hearing a sound?" can be fabricated in a few seconds, for a few pennies.

The nice ones you can use for plinking and target practice without wearing them out may be a few hundred bucks, but there are other ways to silence a pistol for a few shots.

One of them is sometimes used by amateur gunsmiths who want to test out a repair in a suburban yard, without bothering the neighbors or having to go to the range to fire a few rounds and see if a gun will cycle. I haven't done it myself; for one thing, I've never had a backyard until the last few months. But people do it.

Anyway, it's not technically a suppressor, but it could be made to work as one, for the crime you envision.

The bottom line is, like many such things, the laws impact law-abiding hobbyists, and people who want to defend their homes without losing their hearing, not criminals.

 

[Lightninstrike]

That's a good article alelks posted. No data, no debate, law passed by "opinion".

 

[Rush]

The noise a firearms makes when it is fired is often the only warning a police officer or other person gets when it is fired in a crime.

"Warning" by definition comes BEFORE the event.

Take that noise away and you get a very effective murder weapon.

Guns are just as effective as murder weapons without the suppressor.

If someone wants to commit the crime of murder, and really wants to do it quietly, with a gun, they might as well commit the crime of illegally owning a suppressor too.

 

[Byron Quick]

Take that noise away and you get a very effective murder weapon.

Apparently this is not true. People exist who make their living by murdering people. They're known as 'hit men.' Since they are willing to break laws against murder, I would assume they are willing to break the laws against suppressors.

Please document ONE murder in the US where a suppressor was used either before their restriction under the NFA of 1934 or afterward.

The argument that they should be restricted because they would be so effective as a murder weapon is a straw argument. The FACT is that they have never been used as such in the US.

Making a suppressor is not rocket science. If they were so darned effective, they would be used. Even state of the art, modern suppressors are louder than what you see in the movies.

 

[Skoghund]

In England most .22 rifles come ready threaded for a silencer. How can you lamp bunnies at night with out one. One little quirk of the law is that if you buy a silencer for an air rifle you don't need it on a licence but if you have the same on a .22 you need it on your ticket.
On full bore rifles they are very popular for hunting. several of my mates have them. I think they mess up the balance of the rifle.
They were made legal here in Sweden last year.

 

[Ranb]

Lots of misinformation here in this thread.

Silencers do not make a lethal firearm silent at all. While they can reduce noise by up to a factor of 1000 times, a suppressed firearm is still going to be 115 to 130 decibels.

Even in the USA where the media and anti-gun whores have managed to demonize silencers and other title 2 weapons, it is completely legal to make or buy a silencer as long as you are at least 18 years old and live in one of the 37 states that allow unlicensed civilians to own them. While there is a $200 tax for each one made or bought, approval is routine (2-3 months) and never denied to anyone who fills out the forms properly.

I make my own silencers in my garage on a lathe. I use the ATF form 1, and spend only $20-$50 on material to make effective silencers for pistols and high powered rifles. I will add shotgun and revolver (nagant 1895) silencers to my collection this year.

Ranb

 

[moooose102]

we cant even have them at all here in gustopo michigan. the reason the feds dont wat you to have one is because we all would suddenly turn us into "hitmen" if we did have them. in their eyes, there is no legal use for them, except for them to use them against us. the $200.00 price tag they add is for continuous video survelance equipment they install to keep track of you.

 

[ar10]

Silencers do not make a lethal firearm silent at all. While they can reduce noise by up to a factor of 1000 times, a suppressed firearm is still going to be 115 to 130 decibels.

I agree they don't silence a rifle completely but they sure knock it down a lot.
We have a 20' dia rcp pipe you have to shoot through with rail ties on each side of the opening. If you fire a rife w/o ear protection you could blow out an ear drum. The echo from the pipe is bad and you can feel the shock wave coming back at you.
I was at the 300yd range shooting my AR10 and 3 LE snipers. Their rifles were custom Remington 308's with some type of suppressor they screwed on (I did not ask about the make). The suppressors looked like they were at least 12" long and heavy. The rifles were also fitted with some type of fantastic recoil pad. I had the opportunity to fire all three.(they had scopes that let me see ticks crawling across the target) and they were using Remington 168gn HP match ammo. With my ear protection on those rifle sounded about what a 22lr sounds like and the recoil was the same. When I asked about the noise and recoil they stated the suppressors were custom designed to reduce the recoil and flash. it was nothing like my AR10 with the steel butt plate.

 

[DC300a]

I can see this argument from both sides... I have no problem with law abiding citizen having them but I can also see the advantage of having them restricted. In fact there is probably a better arguement for restricting them than for restricting full-autos.

Regardless, I am not going to tell anyone they can have one... I personally have never felt the urge to own one....

Just me $0.02

 

[Prion]

I've got a great silencer that works on all my guns. They're these rubbery things that you shove in your ears. My guns have never been quieter!

 

[Mello]

The National Firearms Act 1934

The Act defines a number of categories of regulated weapons. These weapons are collectively known as "Title II" weapons and include the following:

1. Machine guns - this includes any firearm which can fire more than 1 cartridge per trigger pull. Both continuous fully-automatic fire and "burst fire" (ie, weapons with a 3-round burst feature) are considered machine gun features.
2. Short barreled rifles (SBRs) - this category includes any weapon with a buttstock and either a rifled barrel under 16" long or an overall length under 26". The overall length is measured with any folding or collapsing stocks in the extended position. The category also includes weapons which came from the factory with a buttstock that was later removed by a third party.
3. Short barreled shotguns (SBSs) - this category is defined similarly to SBRs, but the length limit for the barrel is 18" instead of 16", and the barrel must be a smoothbore. The minimum overall length limit remains 26".
4. Suppressors - this includes any portable device designed to muffle or disguise the report of a portable firearm. This category does not include non-portable devices, such as sound traps used by gunsmiths in their shops which are large and usually bolted to the floor.
5. Destructive Devices (DDs) - there are two broad classes of destructive devices. The first class contains devices such as grenades, bombs, poison gas weapons, etc. The second class contains any non-sporting firearm with a bore over 0.50" (many firearms with bores over 0.50", such as 12-gauge shotguns, which are exempted from the law because they have been determined to have a legitimate sporting use).
6. Any Other Weapons (AOWs) - this is a broad "catch-all" category used to regulate any number of weapons which the ATF deems deserving of registration and taxation. Examples include smooth-bore pistols, pen guns and cane guns, short-barreled weapons with both rifled and smooth bores, etc.

Some say this act was instituted to give the federal agents that used to enforce prohibitions law something to do. Roosevelt was expanding government and this fit right in.

 

[LSU Fan]

Don't quote me on this... but I'm pretty sure it's illegal to use a suppressor for hunting.

 

[MIgunguy]

Just FYI suppressors aren't regulated in New Zealand. Like in the U.K., their use is actually encouraged.

 

[expvideo]

Don't quote me on this... but I'm pretty sure it's illegal to use a suppressor for hunting.

Pardon me for quoting you on this, but that is entirely based on state and local laws. There is no federal restriction against hunting with a suppressor.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

I think the theory of the .gov on WHY they are restricted is along the lines of, it's harder for law enforcement to track you following murder or mayhem committed by the owner/possessor. Less sound = fewer witnesses and less credible witnesses. It's the whole assassin's tool thing which the .gov is concerned about, rightly or wrongly. Rightly, in part, I suppose. But they want to know who has the suppressors in a given area if a murder occurs in an urban setting and there are no sound witnesses for some odd reason. Sound witnesses can of course lead to eyewitnesses when they go to investigate the sound.

4. Suppressors - this includes any portable device designed to muffle or disguise the report of a portable firearm.

So if you mount a gun in a permanent fixture/tripod at the homestead, you can suppress it to your heart's content without any paperwork...interesting.

It is indeed illegal in most (perhaps all) US states, to hunt anything with a suppressed gun.

 

[Phydeaux642]

Please document ONE murder in the US where a suppressor was used either before their restriction under the NFA of 1934 or afterward.

I believe the number is "0".

Silencers do not make a lethal firearm silent at all. While they can reduce noise by up to a factor of 1000 times, a suppressed firearm is still going to be 115 to 130 decibels.

I was at an indoor range where a fellow from a manufacturer was testing a new suppressor for an AR-15. I was in the handgun range and he was in the rifle tube and I could hear it just fine. Obviously, not as loud as normal but I could hear it none the less.

 

[Ranb]

DC300a;

You may feel the urge after using one. I made a silencer for my 300 whisper and it has made me feel that I need to make them for my entire collection.

Ranb

 

[Ranb]

ARLover;

My ar-15 silencer is much better than your ear plugs. It even reduces the noise heard by bystanders who are not wearing hearing protection and those people who are in their houses near the rifle range. Haha.

Ranb

 

[woodybrighton]

UK they go on the Ticket as its a seperate part of a weapon but there use is actually encouraged.
http://www.thamesvalleyguns.co.uk/
see in a gun free country guns that would get you jailed in the free USA
you could when handguns were legal get suppresors for them but it was'nt that common mostly because it throws the balance out. plus unless everyone at the range has them sort of pointless
In Norway its considered the height of bad manners not to supress a handgun if your going to plink anywhere near your neighbours
I like the norweigans they can have have fully automatic weapons with almost no paperwork and practicaly nobody bothers.
but they are a small rich country with a very low gun crime rate.