4347

If criminals are allowed to have suppressors, then the cops won’t be able to see them on radar.

4348

That is perhaps a bit harsh. I wonder the same thing about suppressors. In places where they are legal, do people make commonplace use of them to protect their hearing? To me, they’re more a murder tool, an impression formed by watching TV.

I don’t think that makes me a “gun grabber liberal,” though. I’m a lifelong gun-owner (though, more the ‘shotgun in a closet’ type than ‘open carry my assault rifle in Ruby Tuesday’ sort). I didn’t even realize that suppressors were legal in my state until googling it 10 seconds ago. If I went to a local shooting range, would I likely see a bunch of people using them?

4349

There are… different ways to address ignorance. olaf’s is one of them. I’m not sure how effective it is, but what do I know.

I only occasionally see them at the range. They’re pretty rare. When you increase the cost of something, that lowers the demand.

4350

Are suppressors actually illegal? I had thought they were.

I think the fact that they are so rare is part of what contributes to the idea that some folks have that they’re only used by spies to murder each other silently.

4351

They’re NFA items, similar but not identical to machine guns. (You can’t buy a new machine gun, but you can transfer old ones. You can buy new suppressors.) There’s a lot of paperwork with the ATF and a $200 tax stamp.

Although you won’t often find me linking to Daily Kos, here’s a post from a few years ago about suppressors, their history, and why they ought to be more freely available in the US.

4352

Perhaps a bit harsh. My bad. I am very defensive when it comes to guns on this forum.

Suppressors are legal in almost every state. https://silencerco.com/education/

That said, because they are subject to bullshit federal regulation (paperwork, a $200 tax stamp and a long waiting period) in every state that they are legal in, they are not common. But they should be, because they make shooting better. Shooting a suppressed gun vs a normal gun is night and day. They are not the whisper quiet devices that you see in TV shows and movies, but they are orders of magnitude quieter than un-suppressed guns and they reduce felt recoil to boot. Here is a graphic that shows relative decibel levels https://crimefictionbook.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/silencer-noise-levels.jpg I can’t honestly vouch for that graphic’s accuracy but in my experience shooting a suppressed gun vs an un-suppressed gun is a very meaningful difference.

4353

Sounds like you think they’re superior in every way. If so, why don’t manufacturers just integrate the suppression mechanism/elements into the gun itself? Is that not permitted by law or is there no market for it?

4354

If videogames have taught me anything, it is that silenced weapons have shorter range and are often less accurate.

FO4 is a realistic simulation, right? :)

4355

The whole gun is treated like the silencer in that case.

The reason that video game silencers mean short range is that you can’t effectively suppress a supersonic bullet if ‘actually quiet’ rather than ‘quieter’ is your goal, and subsonic bullets don’t go as far for the same amount of drop. (The extreme case being a bullet with zero forward speed, which goes nowhere for the same amount of drop.)

4356

Well a lot of military arms have had integral suppressors(The venerable HK MP5 comes to mind…they have marketed an integrally suppressed version since the mid 70s). For the civilian market, there are a couple that have done so recently, but it does make the gun an NFA item out of the gate. So while there is a market for it, its a really small market, much like every other NFA item, compared to a non-suppressed weapon.

But yeah I do think a suppressed weapon is superior in almost every way. It does introduce additional length and weight to a weapon…and I have to think it impacts overall reliability over the long haul. But the advantages far outweigh the negatives.

4357

Do they have a real world effect on range and accuracy? Or it that the realm of video games and movies?

4358

Well I suppose I am a bit ignorant about suppressors. But I’m obviously not the only one because I grew up on the farm shooting guns all the time and was in armed forces with lots of experience on the range with automatic rifles and machine guns. Hardly someone with no experience with guns at all.

4359

Nope, not appreciably. There are three cases to consider:

  1. No suppressor, supersonic ammunition: very loud.
  2. Suppressor, supersonic ammunition: loud, but less loud. No real effect on accuracy or range.
  3. Suppressor, subsonic ammunition: much less loud, possibly even quiet. Effective range is definitely compromised, because you’re down around 900-1000 feet per second for rifle rounds, instead of the preferred 2500+. The bullet doesn’t lose energy any faster, but has a lot less to start with. Accuracy may also be compromised: the rifling in the barrel has to twist differently for slow, heavy bullets than it does for fast, lightweight ones, so unless you have a barrel designed for your purpose, you may see accuracy problems.

Most civilian uses of suppressors fall under #2: using normal ammunition, but with a suppressor. Your standard .30-caliber (7.5ish-mm) rifle is in the 160-170dB range at 1m, which is 10-100 times as loud as a jet engine at 1m. A suppressor will bring that down to the 130s or 140s, which is more comparable to a jet engine at 100m. (Still requires ear protection, but doesn’t require quite as much ear protection.)

One of the side effects of suppressors as NFA items is that there is no low-end market. When your price of entry is, at minimum, a $200 tax, a $50 throwaway product doesn’t make very much sense.

4360

Note to self: If you’re in Texas, and you give an escourt $150 (legal), but she doesn’t have sex with you (illegal) then you can shoot her in the neck and not go to jail

4361

That’s weird because I thought in criminal law that giving money for a service that never happens was not considered theft. Like when someone gets scammed, the police don’t do anything about it because technically you gave the money to the person. It’s a civil matter at that point.

Maybe Texas law is different, but then you’d think all scammers in Texas would be dead by now.

4362

The Florida AG apparently personally solicited a donation from Trump just prior to choosing not to pursue the case.
Holy shit, dude.

4363

The Texas law is idiotic as hell. All he needs is to reasonably believe that he needs to use force to protect his property from nightime theft. The law doesn’t require that, post facto, he must prove that there was a true nighttime theft for the defense to attach.

“Sir you shot the man for getting into his own car, which happens to look like yours.”

“Well, I THOUGHT he was stealing from me!”

He relied on section (2) of this law: http://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-9-42.html

It literally allows you to shoot people as they are fleeing from what you thought was a nighttime theft. Moreover, $1 stinking dollar’s worth of property would be enough for this.

Fucking Texas.

4364

Ok but I thought giving someone money and then not receiving the expected service wasn’t considered theft in the eyes of the law.

4365

Again, the issue of whether it is actual, legal theft (which I honestly don’t know if what he alleged would be or not) is not the key issue. The issue is whether he reasonably believed it was theft.

4366

I find it kind of weird that if someone steals from you in Texas, you can then track them down and kill them.

In most places, we call that vigilantism.