Why Silencers Arent Golden

[billh58]

If you heard that a proposed law was entitled the “Hearing Protection Act,” you might believe the law was intended, say, to strengthen protections for the hearing of workers exposed to high noise levels on the job or to require healthcare plans to cover the costs of auditory tests.

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The Hearing Protection Act of 2017 is actually a bill being lobbied for by the National Rifle Association and the American Suppressor Association—who even knew such an organization existed!—which aims to loosen restrictions on access to silencers for guns.

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The sound of gunfire alerts people that someone is firing a weapon nearby and that they should take suitable precautions. If that sound is muffled, people may be unaware that they’re in danger and thus not take cover.

In addition, the sound of gunfire may drive individuals to call the police, alerting authorities to a possible crime or accidental shooting. But if a gun has a silencer, no one may hear it when it’s fired and so someone in need of medical attention may not get it in time.

https://thecrimereport.org/2017/06/20/why-silenced-guns-arent-golden/

H.R. 367 would enable dangerous people to buy silencers with no background check whatsoever.

•The NFA, which was passed in 1934 to fight organized crime, requires buyers of silencers, machine guns, and other especially dangerous weapons to pass criminal background checks and comply with other common-sense safety provisions.

•H.R. 367 would strip this requirement for silencers. And—for the first time in 80 years—felons, domestic abusers, and the dangerously mentally ill would be able to buy silencers with no background check, simply by finding an unlicensed seller.

•Removing silencers from the NFA would undermine the law’s success in keeping the public, and law enforcement officers, safe from crime. Research shows the use of silenced firearms in crime is rare, demonstrating the NFA works to keep silencers out of the wrong hands.

•It’s often the sound of gunshots that prompts calls to 911. In Washington, DC, for example, 911 operators receive over a thousand calls every year reporting the sound of shots fired.

•ShotSpotter, a tool which recognizes the sound of gunshots, alerted law enforcement to nearly 75,000 gunfire incidents in 72 cities in 2015: That’s an average of one every 7 minutes.

•These alerts matter because quick access to medical care saves lives. Shorter 911 response times increase a victim’s likelihood of survival, and have been estimated to explain up to 56% of the decrease in homicides over the last 50 years.

The right-wing gun lobby and its enablers say that none of the above is true and that suppressors/silencers are totally harmless and good for shooters and the public in general. The truth is that profits for the death merchants are more important to the Trumpsters than public health and the reduction of our nation's gun violence epidemic.