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.
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.