When did use of hearing protection become standard practice?

[Deus Machina]

Found my dad's old vented earplugs in a drawer, returned them with his refurbished shotgun. They were obviously of roughly 1970's design. Early eighties at the latest.
Know he used to wear them when he was out hunting.
Before then? I don't know, I have to raise my voice around him.

 

[shoobe01]

Went to Boy Scout camp in the very early 70s. Shooting at the.22 rifle range, nobody used ear or eye protection...

It took a while to catch on even places like this that should be fairly safety first. Early 80s Boy Scout camp we were required to do eyes and ears... sometimes. Officially yes, but not everyone enforced it, and some parents even argued about it, barely complied when ordered to.

Even then, any distance back from the line was considered a no-PPE zone, which was in retrospect missing the point.

 

[hso]

So, if you are about 60 or older, what do you recall about when hearing protection became the norm?

30 years ago when I changed careers and began to study occupational hearing loss and firearms related hearing loss.

 

[lysanderxiii]

In the early 1970s, maybe around 1973, ear plugs were always worn at the range we frequented. Eye protection was reserved for the machine shop.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

I wish I had used hearing protection when I was younger.
I grew up in the late 80s and early 90s and we never had anything.
If you were watching someone else shoot, you covered your ears. If you were the one shooting, you did nothing.
I shake my head when I realize how stupid it was when hearing protection is so readily available and so cheap.

I still don't use anything when hunting. One shot, with the barrel sticking out of a box blind isn't going to do any further damage than the thousands of shots I've already been through I don't guess.

 

[jmr40]

I never belonged to a formal range until the late 1990's. Prior to that there was always a place to go and set up to shoot. I started shooting some as a kid in the late 1960's, but as a teen and young adult did a lot more through the 70's and 80's. Never wore any ear protection, nor did my dad who was a WW-2 vet.

In the mid 80's, as a requirement for work I had to get a complete physical each year including a hearing test. I was told then that I had some very minor hearing loss in my left ear. The one closest to the sound for a right handed shooter, my right ear was still near 100%. That was when I started wearing hearing protection.

 

[ATLDave]

I'm in my early 40's. Growing up, my dad was pretty insistent on my brother and I using hearing protection (and eye pro) anytime we went shooting, though I don't remember it being used for our few (mostly futile) hunting efforts. I know that others in my peer group were not always using it. I think my generation was kind of the phase-change group, where some of us always used it and some spent some period of time not using, but now almost always do.

Same thing with seatbelts. Gen X'ers really were the generation that saw safety gear as a normal part of everyday life (from birth on up) come to prominence.

 

[JeffG]

Use of hearing protection was a casual subject in the 70's in the Marine Corps. My issued earplugs were a bad fit, and I never said anything. Working in a paper mill breifly, and being a firearms instructor for 30+ years took their toll. Even today check the protection level of your digital hearing protection. Mine were rated at 29db. That's not enough, I work at an indoor range. I just bought 37db muffs. I've worn hearing aids for 10+ years. Insist on good hearing protection for yourself and those around you.

 

[ATLDave]

IMO, anyone who shoots indoors on a range where people are shooting stuff beyond .22's should plug-and-muff.

 

[rodregier]

LASD LEO range film on Youtube from 1936 (1938?) - they were using issue hearing protection so some folks as far back as then knew it was a good thing.

 

[Browning]

I started shooting in the mid 70's as a kid. Mostly my dad remembered to bring a few sets of ear muffs that he had when we went shooting. However a few times we stopped off at Sav-on to buy bulk packed cotton to shove in our ears (it helped a little) and a few times we ended up out there with no type of ear pro at all.

Eye pro wasn't worn at all back then. I got my eye protection in the form of prescription eyeglasses at 14.

Now I keep emergency sets of ear plugs in the truck.

 

[aarondhgraham]

USAF Basic Training in November of 1970,,,
For our live fire day there was a box of earmuffs,,,
But they were optional and anyone who picked one up got glared at by the range master.

He said if anyone missed a command because they were wearing one of those (expletive deleted) things,,,
He would be tossed off the range and fail the live fire portion of basic training.

Aarond

.

 

[Saddlebag Preacher]

I'm going to hit 60 soon. I never used ear protection as a kid. When I joined the police department in the late 1970's, we maybe used some cotton in our ears AFTER they started to ring on firing on the line at qualification. Later on the use became normal, but I suffer from tinnitus and hearing loss from that and sirens for over 30 years. Today's shooter has a great selection of hearing protection devices I wish we had. I beg all you young shooters to use them religiously and not suffer later.

 

[FL-NC]

I remember using earplugs (or pieces of paper napkins) when shooting high power rifles and handguns as a kid. Never used them for bird or deer hunting (shotguns were the norm in Fl). When I joined the army in '87, earplugs were issued and required to be used. In fact, some places the case was part of the BDU uniform and was hung from a button on the top, and it BETTER have 2 earplugs in it. The problem was from a tactical standpoint- in reality, no one did combat patrols with earplugs in. Absolutely forget that on a dismounted recon. It wasn't until fairly recently that electronic protection like peltor com-tacs were available, and models were issued that are ruggedized, weather-resistant, and compatible with communication equipment and military helmets. In some SOCOM units, there are other custom electronic hearing protection devices that do the same thing but are more user-friendly to the wearer.

 

[EIB0879]

When I went through Army BCT in 1977 was the first time I remember using hearing protection.

 

[foxmeadow]

When I got my first .357 Magnum in 1974..

 

[Tinpig]

I was brought up to shoot in the '50s by the generation of Dads and uncles who'd been in WWII. They had survived without hearing protection and never considered it necessary; never considered it, period. As I got older I realized how deaf they all were, and put two and two together. A bit late for me, but not for my children and grandchildren.

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

I grew up on a farm also, so I was exposed to the typical noises of tractors, combines, balers, and feed grinders as well as shooting. I worked as a Tool and Die Maker in a heavy stamping plant for 5 years without hearing protection in the late 1970's. Nobody wore any. When I introduced my kids to shooting in the 1980's we wore earmuff type protectors. I occasionally have some ringing in my ears but over all my hearing is still pretty good. My Dad lost his when he hit 80 so I will have to wait and see......

 

[huntsman]

^ my first job was at a small machine shop and didn’t have access to hearing protection.

when I went to work at fortune100 companies not only did I have access to foam plugs but also had custom fit rubber plugs made.

That and yearly hearing tests made me aware of the need to protect my hearing at work, at home I was too macho to follow thru with it.

 

[ontarget]

I'm 46, and don't remember using muffs till I was about 18. That's about the time I started shooting a 30-06 and a 870 with the short slug barrel. That made a believer out of me.
A few years later I was shooting an intermural match at Stone Bay, Camp Lejeune and went to the firing line for the 300 meter rapid fire relay. As soon as the targets cleared the butts, I realized I forgot to put on my muffs. My ears have been whistling ever since.

 

[Sistema1927]

I will be 62 in a couple of months. My first use of hearing protection was the set of ear plugs issued to me in Basic Training. I shudder to think how many times my ears were exposed to gunfire prior to that time.

Maybe that is why I wear hearing aids and suffer from tinnitus.

 

[WestKentucky]

In 1970 the OSH act was signed into law. Shortly thereafter a whole bunch of verbiage got added as amendments came through. It was in this era when employers were mandated to provide hearing protection to their workers, so it was roughly this era when everybody suddenly had access to free devices, and some of them started making their way to the shooting ranges. Since then the practice has grown to be the new normal.

 

[hemiram]

I didn't shoot much at all until '77, and used ear protection from day one. I did grow up shooting a lot of fireworks off, smashing whole boxes of caps with a sledgehammer (Ears would whistle for hours), and then when I was 14 in 1970, I discovered Funny Cars and Top Fuel. I didn't wear any protection at the races until the mid '80's, maybe later '80's. I went to well over 100 nitro races over that period and would often come home deaf as a rock. Somehow my hearing survived. At 61, I have problems with my right eustation tube clogging up and making me unable to hear high freqs, but when I pop it by holding my nose and blowing, or I get lucky and it opens on it's own, I hear very well. I'm getting tired of my car stereo being "lopsided" and having to ask people to repeat themselves, so I'm going to the doctor and see what can be done about the tube blockage.

 

[JSH1]

In the mid 80's, as a requirement for work I had to get a complete physical each year including a hearing test. I was told then that I had some very minor hearing loss in my left ear. The one closest to the sound for a right handed shooter, my right ear was still near 100%. That was when I started wearing hearing protection.

Same story for me. I got my first hearing test for work when I was about 30. I had lost 15 dB in the left ear and 10 dB in the right by then. That was a wake-up call and I have been wearing ear plugs since.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

I make a point of getting in on every hearing protection thread I find because I made the mistake of not protecting my hearing and lost most of it.

I was an artilleryman in the Army for several years and afterwards worked as a sheet metal fabricator/ machinist. I started my manufacturing career operating a Strippit 1250 CNC Turret Press and made a point of using hearing protection then but it was too late.

I am 52 years old I can no longer use a telephone, I have to use the closed captions when I watch TV (or turn it up so loud the neighbors can hear it), my wife has given up on asking me “Did you hear that?”, I’ve lost a lot of the enjoyment of music (MP3 head phones will damage your hearing too BTW) and I have to lip read my grandkids

My point is, once your hearing is gone, it’s gone and by the time you realize I know exactly what I'm talking about it will be too late for you too.

Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection