Ask any longtime shooter to name a single piece of gear available today that they wished they had when they first started shooting years ago. If they hear you correctly, and you don’t have to repeat yourself too many times, many will likely say, “suppressors.”
It doesn’t matter what you call them—silencers, cans, gun mufflers, whisper pickles or suppressors—they work extremely well and dramatically reduce the decibels headed toward your ears.
Depending on the type of suppressor you’re using, the firearm, its caliber and ammunition, the results can be stunning. Amazing, in fact.
Today, suppressors are easier to purchase than ever before, although they still require federal oversight, which may soon be changing. Turnaround time from filing your federal paperwork to picking up your suppressor is now measured in days if not hours, as opposed to months or even years when Joe Biden’s ATF was in charge. Also, they’re dropping in price.
More organizations are speaking out on behalf of cans, telling anyone who cares about maintaining their hearing that suppressors are effective…which isn’t what the anti-gunners want to hear.
In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, through its National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, took a pro-suppressor position, stating that suppressors offer, “effective engineering controls to reduce hazardous gunshot noise at the source, lowering peak sound pressure levels at the shooter’s ear by 17 to 26 decibels.”
In other words, cans are good, which is why they’re legal in 42 states.
Lifetime shooters struggling with hearing loss and tinnitus may actually become a thing of the past with wider suppressor use, but unfortunately, that depends on where you live.
Suppressors remain prohibited in Hawaii, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, and the District of Columbia and, of course, California. These deep blue states are apparently worried that hitmen, assassins or gangsters may go to a gun store, choose a suppressor, fill out the federal paperwork accurately—including their full name, address and other personal identifiers—wait until their purchase is approved, return to the gun store, pick it up and then sally forth to commit armed (albeit quieter) mayhem.
Timothy Wheeler, MD, is a retired surgeon and director emeritus of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership—a project of the Second Amendment Foundation—and a nationwide network of physicians, health professionals and others who support the safe and lawful use of firearms. The California Medical Association, Dr. Wheeler says, is “stubbornly refusing” to endorse suppressors as a way to reduce hearing loss, even after the CDC report said they function extremely well.
For Dr. Wheeler, who lives in southern California, the CMA’s rebuke wasn’t a surprise.
“This is consistent with their three-decade policy jihad against gun owners. That physician organization, a state affiliate of the AMA, has actively supported sky-high taxes, bans, and all sorts of criminal penalties for gun owners. In a word, they hate us,” Dr. Wheeler said. “With this latest move, it’s clear they refuse to help prevent an untreatable disability—noise-induced hearing loss—in gun owners, and they think we should go to prison if we dare to put a muffler on our firearm here in California.”
The CMA didn’t respond to multiple phone calls or emails seeking information about their position on suppressors/silencers. Their unwillingness to even discuss whatever issues they may have with the use of modern suppressors is expected, of course. If you shoot a gun, you deserve to lose your hearing, they probably believe.
Hiram Percy Maxim—whose father Hiram Stevens Maxim invented the first machinegun—was granted the first American patent for a suppressor in 1909, which should have been enough time for the newness and irrational fear to have worn off.
Suppressors should be available without any paperwork, especially federal paperwork. One should be in included in the box with every firearm purchased in every state—including California.
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This story is part of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and is published here with their permission.