There's a price to pay for shooting an intruder in your house. Forget the legal ramifications. A gun shot in typical room in a house is going to make a hell of a noise as well as a sudden, strong, air pressure spike in that room.
Anyone who has shot in an indoor range has experienced that, even with hearing protection. If the shooter is using some high caliber ammo, 357 Sig, for example, the effect is worse. Hearing protection is a must.
While many homeowners keep handguns nearby in case of a home invasion, they all hope they never have to use them. If they did, the answer to the investigating officer's first question will be, "Huh?" And the hearing loss man not be temporary.
So it was interesting to see this article at Hotair.com: Should suppressors (a.k.a “silencers”) be more widely available for gun owners? The answer to that question should be an easy one although the author struggles with it.
The federal government treats silencers like they do machine guns. It's legal to own one, but there's a gauntlet any prospective owner has to run through.
But some states are changing their laws on the subject. Here's Reuters.com in Not just for hitmen: Gun industry wants looser rules on silencers:
The U.S. 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 U.S. government more than doubled to 792,282 in February 2015 from 360,534 in March 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Protect those ear drums. Age related hearing loss is bad enough.
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