Hearing Protection Act: Is this U.S. Senator lying, ignorant or just grossly misinformed?

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Jackal

Jackal

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Sen. Chris Murphy stated “Silencers are used to commit crimes. They are used to conceal the fact that you are firing a weapon. There will be more crimes committed– more people killed– if silencers are legalized.”

As far as I am aware, legal silencers have been used in virtually no crimes in the last 80 years, making his statement patently false. Is the Senator just straight up lying or is he just ignorant of facts and towing party lines? Here's a link to the story: http://www.guns.com/2017/03/08/senator-on-hearing-protection-act-lives-will-be-lost-video/
 
Of course they're used; criminals hate loud noises that damage their ear drums & are generally obnoxious as much as the rest of us, especially when it makes the task harder. Poachers are notorious for using silencers, which is why the law was passed in the first place; starving migrant workers in the Depression were foraging on federal & private property for game to stay alive. Pathos, yes, and lawlessness deserves to be punished, yes, but those were the facts of the matter rather than Chicago gangsters blasting away while police stood around wondering where all the mosquitoes were coming from.

As you'd expect, the law did absolutely nothing to dissuade the practice among poachers, and game wardens have siezed silencers regularly from these suspects ever since. But now Jethro gets to spend a handful of years in the pen before going back into the game because of federal rifle charges (and picks up even-quieter and less regulated compound bow hunting afterward)

Where the senator is bold-faced lying is in conflating violent (against humans) crime with the typical usage of silencers by criminal elements. I understand that during the Iraq reconstruction, cans were getting cranked out for local fighters so as to give them a better edge at getting away unscathed, but it is a wide wide mental leap to apply the potential tactic to the US.

I'd just throw that laughably-low murder clearance rate (under 10% in both NYC and Chicago, and I'd assume in most other big cities) back in his face instead. Clearly "going about undetected" is not much of a concern for these guys since their gunshots aren't getting them pinched, today.

It's probably worth looking into what kind of a role Shot Spotter is playing in this opposition. Considering their entire customer base is composed of grandstanding anti-gun politicians that effectively makes it a PAC, it's not beyond imagination that they could be acting as a political lobbying group on behalf of the same people/groups to keep silencers illegal.

TCB
 
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He is stating what he believes to be a plausible lie. It is plausible because if/when the noise suppressors become common, some of them will inevitably be employed while committing murder. Will the number of murders increase? Highly unlikely.
 
Seriously? You guys didn't know poachers enjoy disguising/reducing their presence with cheap, simple silencers (often in conjunction with "underpowered" cartridges like 22LR), which do not present the same size/length barrier to their art they do the common mugger? Or that jobless, broke, starving people riding the rails might care to snipe a cow or pig or deer from whatever property they're passing?

Quick search reveals an article about how Wardens are on the lookout for them, how they are common in poaching of endangered African game (I'm sure our poachers are far less sophisticated than some guys with a single shot 22LR, a soda bottle, some duct tape, and a chunk of bushmeat in their pocket), and a good number of photos showing obvious improv jobs siezed. That's just on the first page (thankfully, it's dwarfed by 'good' silencer topics from writers & industry)

Heck, even a nonsense Salon article agrees that poaching was by & large the only original justification for their ban, the 'assassin' angle they claim came from CIA projects (i.e. Hollywood, lol) in the '60s.

Believe it or not, the famous (but incomplete) congressional record of the floor debate doesn't mention silencers at all, so your best bet for "original sources" is at the state policy level. Good luck. Sorry truth is that in reality, there really was no logical reason for the criminal image, but the only practical criminal application has always been poaching.
 
barnbwt said:
Seriously? You guys didn't know poachers enjoy disguising/reducing their presence with cheap, simple silencers (often in conjunction with "underpowered" cartridges like 22LR), which do not present the same size/length barrier to their art they do the common mugger? Or that jobless, broke, starving people riding the rails might care to snipe a cow or pig or deer from whatever property they're passing?
Click to expand...

I don't. I know it is frequently alledged, but anyone can alledge anything no matter how absurd. Suppressor opponents frequently alledge that suppressors turn a 168db rifle report into a quiet little *phut* you can barely hear from across the room. Allegations, especially from people with a bias/agenda, mean nothing.

Can you cite examples of it actually being proved to happened in the USA? Not "we think it could happen" but "this person was caught in the act on this date." How many examples?


barnbwt said:
Quick search reveals an article about how Wardens are on the lookout for them, how they are common in poaching of endangered African game
Click to expand...

Exactly. "On the lookout" isn't the same as "have made an arrest", and African endangered game poaching is an entirely different situation in an entirely different legal and social context.

Being caught with an untaxed silencer in the US is a federal felony carrying significant jail time, so any poacher caught with a "cheap, simple silencer" would be looking at serious criminal charges, with all of the associated public records from courts, news reports, etc..

A quick search for any common crime will show page after page of evidence that the particular crime actually happens. A quick search for poachers using silencers in the US reveals a whole bunch of people theorizing that it could be a problem.
 
It's been my impression that when the original '34 NFA was first written as a complete handgun ban there was no provisions for silencers or all the other shortened barrel etc we now suffer from. Making the rounds in Congress for support it was found that it wouldn't pass - so they tacked on further regulations against silencers and chopped barrels to make it appear as an anti crime bill.

The reality of poaching is that the perpetrator is usually a mile from the nearest domicile out in the country, and law enforcement usually engaged elsewhere. Wardens and conservation agents are spread pretty thin and when you live in the country - you go out and shoot whenever you please. The discharge of a single round usually means very little, and if at night typically signifies someone dealing with predators near the chicken coop. "Poaching" in the depression wasn't much for trophies - it was meat for the table when all you had was the price of a cartridge you bought one or two at a time out of the proceeds of your daily labor if you could get it. There weren't much in the way of seasons and property holders who did live off the land knew the downside of shooting all the game - there would be none until overpopulation from some other area moved in before it would be restored.

"Silencers were the tool of poachers" is propaganda from the anti gunners. The average 40 acre farmer didn't have the disposable cash for one - and it was the family man trying to keep his family fed who added rabbits, field birds, or a rare deer to his larder. Whitetails were in serious decline long before the NFA was passed and no, silencers weren't common or commonly used. Much less as the "tool of poachers."

All the pictures of deer camps from the turn of the century to 1934, I've yet to see a suppressed rifle propped up against the stumps or tent walls. If you had it why did so many go out of their way to hide it, considering the difficulty of how they were attached? Look at the photos and you are more likely to see Cutts Compensators than silencers.

I'd like to know why a subsistence dirt farmer with little cash flow on 40 acres and one mule - the supposed poacher of the wild - would have the money to blow on a silencer when he didn't often have the cash for plastering the walls of his house. It got layers of newspaper to seal off the wind back then - and a new board for the roof if it was leaking. He couldn't even afford fancy shingles.
 
A 9mm shot can be about 160dB
A typical suppressor lowers sound pressure by about 30dB

That would make the typical 9mm shot about 130dB.
130 dB is louder than a thunder clap, louder than a chain saw,
About as loud as an F/A-18 taking off on full burners, 50ft away.

(the above values are courtesy of Purdue Univ)
 
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barnbwt said:
Quick search reveals an article about how Wardens are on the lookout for them, how they are common in poaching of endangered African game (I'm sure our poachers are far less sophisticated than some guys with a single shot 22LR, a soda bottle, some duct tape, and a chunk of bushmeat in their pocket), and a good number of photos showing obvious improv jobs siezed.
Click to expand...

I'm fairly confident that "crazy things that happen in Africa" has never been a good foundation for law in the US.
 
I would be fairly confident that the distances between a shooter and people that can hear the shot, are closer on city streets, than on the plains of Africa.
And wasn't that what Sen Gillibrand (D-NY) was so concerned about, in her recent tweets? A bad guy using a 'silencer' equipped gun to gun people down on city streets, without anyone noticing.
[rolling my eyes.....]
 
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The Senator is a party line voter and simply uses the Democrat talking points. He and the rest of the senate Democrats will oppose any "pro gun" legislation, unless they are from a southern state and up for reelection soon.
The poaching argument is just silly. DNR Officers don't come running every time they hear a gunshot, at least not where I live.
For the record, I don't own a suppressor.
 
As someone who lived in CT I can say that Mr Murphy is well aware of the facts and is lying to the public. Period. Simple.
 
barnbwt said:
starving migrant workers in the Depression were foraging on federal & private property for game to stay alive.
Click to expand...
That was the stated opinion of the intelligentsia of the day, with some concurrent blather by Dept of Interior folks looking for funding increases, but, no one can actually show that any such poaching actually occured. Certainly not in the quantity requiring federal regulation.

Poaching remains a largely State level issue and is typically handled by State Game Wardens.

It would be interesting to do a case search to see how many people since 1934 have been brought up on suppressor violations related to poaching.

The law was promulgated against scarecrows, so scarece wonder more strawmen are being erected now to emote histrionically against its change.
 
They say that a suppressor cost $5 in 1934, that may sound like chump change and at first glance it sounds like every kid would have one on their squirrel gun but $5 back then is equivalent to a little over $91 today - how many people had that kind of buying power during the depression - not very many. People poached back then because they were poor and poor people could barely find the money to buy a handful of .22 caliber cartridges every month to two for hunting squirrels, they sure as heck couldn't afford to spend that kind of money on a suppressor.
 
The pols seem to be fixated on the "silencers are the common tool of assassins" so the proper response would be to ask them for one documented case of a suppressor being used in a homicide here in the US of A.
 
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