Just as people put mufflers on their cars and trucks, so too should people put “mufflers” on guns. It doesn’t make them silent. It doesn’t mean using a muffler on your gun makes it more likely to be used in a crime any more than putting a muffler on a car makes it more likely for the car to be used in a crime!
Gun industry works to rebrand silencers as hearing-protection accessories
Gun advocates hope Congress will repeal a 1930s law requiring a screening process for purchasing silencers that can last for months
SilencerCo CEO Joshua Waldron shows guns with suppressors in West Valley City, Utah. Photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reuters(UK Guardian) – The US gun industry is trying to shake off the Hollywood hitman image of the gun silencer and rebrand it as a hearing-protection device in a campaign to roll back regulations that date to the 1930s.
Industry lobbying has led to more than a dozen states legalizing silencers for hunting since 2011. Now gun advocates are pressing Congress to repeal a Depression-era law that requires a months-long screening process for silencer buyers – far more scrutiny than gun buyers face.
Sales of silencers – or “suppressors”, as the industry prefers to call them – are booming. The number of silencers registered with the US government more than doubled to 792,282 in February 2015 from 360,534 in March 2012, according to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Despite their name, silencers can only quiet a gunshot to the level of a jackhammer – not much use for James Bond-style hit jobs.
Silencers are rarely used in crimes, according to a 10-year study published in 2007 by the Western Criminology Review. Researchers estimated silencers were involved in 30 to 40 of the 75,000 federal criminal cases filed each year. The study found only two federal cases involving a silencer used in murders.
…Penalties for misuse are steep. People found guilty of using a silencer in a violent crime under federal law face a minimum of 30 years in prison.
I know the last time I paid $200 and change to put a new muffler on my car I had this intense urge to go run someone over. Then I realized it was just flatulence.
Good one, Sam.
I’m not sure what to think about the UK Guardian publishing this article. Are they pro- or anti-silencer? I realize England is largely anti-gun, but on the European continent the use of silencers is mandatory in many places and the sale of silencers are not controlled like they are in the U.S. You would think a European newspaper would consider the change in U.S. laws regarding the sale of silencers would be hailed as a common sense safety measure!
What took them so long? Calling them silencers is about as stupid as the “common sense gun control” argument.