Dave Hardy reports, and it seems Texas is leading the pack:
Marsha McCartney, a Dallas volunteer for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said she doesn’t understand why people would buy silencers in the first place.
“It would only be a concern if they were buying them because they are doing something illegal,” she said.
So does this mean Brady would be OK if we could buy suppressors with just a NICS check? It’s been a while since we’ve seen or heard from our old favorite Brady Board member, but I’m glad she seems interested in this idea. Lets face it, suppression of muzzle report is just basic courtesy. You know how nice it would be when shooting an air gun match if we could politely ask firearms shooters on the next line if they could stick a can on that thing so we didn’t have to wear hearing protection? But you can’t do that now because no one wants to bother with the regulations, so they are generally not common. In most European countries, suppressors are about as regulated as pencils.
UPDATE: Our new favorite Brady Board member seems to agree with our old favorite Brady Board member. I’m not honestly sure what the feds thought they were accomplishing by restricting them. They inherently aren’t all that dangerous, and to my knowledge were never that seriously used by criminals (they make the gun much harder to conceal).
Most of what people know about suppressors come from movies, but the fact is, on most firearms, they are just going to make the report of the gun not quite as loud. Most bullets travel faster than the speed of sound, and so some of the crack you hear from a rifle or handgun is the sound of a small sonic boom as the bullet breaks the sound barrier. Even a suppressed .22 is going to make about as much noise as an air gun. Stupid people who do stupid things with guns are going to do those stupid things with or without a can on it, and criminals have pretty limited use for them anyway.
UPDATE: SayUncle has the answer: “Originally restricted to prevent poachers on federal land during the depression.” Can’t have people feeding themselves illegally, I guess.
“It would only be a concern if they were buying them because they are doing something illegal,†she said.
Sooooo, is she saying that if I’m not doing anything illegal it’s ok with her that I have a suppressor? And presumably then it would follow that she would only have a problem if I were doing something illegal?
Because that sorta sounds like she’s actually only concerned with the ‘doing something illegal’ part, and not the owning of the suppressor (per se) part.
That can’t be right …..
Originally restricted to prevent poachers on federal land during the depression.
I read it as part and parcel with the “every gun owner is just a criminal waiting to happen” meme.
I viewed it as her saying only criminals would want a suppressor.
Her comments appears just after this section:
Doesn’t it sound like her response is in regards to the background check?
There is a very real drawback to silencer ownership. Once you own one, you’ll want a can for every gun you own. They just make shooting that much more pleasant.
I’m about as concerned with felons having suppressors as I am with them having pencils. In fact, probably more concerned about the pencil because he could stab me with it. I’m not sure what he could do with just a suppressor, short of throw it at me.
For every legal and commercially made silencer there ever was in America, I bet there have been umpteen times more illegal and home made silencers. They are all just tube shaped devices with internal non moving parts. Not that difficult to make whatsoever. I seriously doubt that anybody who makes a silencer for a .22 rifle out of a discarded pop bottle, just for the sake of curiosity, is first going to fill out ATF paperwork and pay 200 bucks for the tax stamp on something made out of throwaway materials, and then repeat the whole process with the ATF after their homemade silencer falls apart or breaks.
You can buy a semi-decent bench lathe for under $400, and if you have any machining experience at all crank out a good (with actual baffles and such) suppressor in a couple hours. If you reload, you can whip up a batch of subsonic ammo to eliminate the bullet “crack”.
I just don’t see the point. If someone wanted to do something nasty and relatively quietly at short range to someone you can buy a pretty decent crossbow for under $300 without being an instant felon just for possession. Granted, the concealability factor goes out the window, but a razor broad head tipped bolt at 315fps will make a much deadlier wound than a subsonic .22 round.
Not that I’ve put thought into this or anything :)
Just like what was already said above – most of what the average person knows about silencers is based upon the movies.
Most movies and TV shows distort the reality of how loud some firearms actually are to begin with, while making their audiences believe that silencers can make firearms quieter than the lowest whisper of a church mouse.
The movies and TV are also the biggest likely reason why the average person might think that the only people who would want to construct or purchase a silencer are mob hit men and other types of villains.
Regarding crossbows, there was just a murder in Toronto outside a library with one.
http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/12/03/16414686.html
Probably was told to be quiet.
Actually it was a case of patricide – the son, Zhou Fang, killed his father, Si Chang after he had assaulted his mother.
I guess that is why we here in North Carolina still need a pistol permit from our sheriff’s office in order to buy a crossbow.
Pistol permit needed for a crossbow purchase in NC? Is that for just pistol size crossbows or all of them?
And I used to think that NC didn’t have any hokey weapons laws like that. Maybe it’s a new law. Maybe pistol permits will be needed in NC for wrist rockets next. NC has had a lot of libtards moving in over the last couple years if I am not mistaken. That would explain the new weapons laws in NC.
It’s probably just as easy for somebody in NC to build a home made crossbow anyway, that is, if they wanted to get one without getting permission from Sheriff Andy in Mayberry RFD or whoever. Crossbows have been around since before Jesus was even a baby. I recall an article from a 1970’s issue of Popular Mechanics that showed crossbow plans that used an old pickup leaf spring for the bow part.
I own a .22 can, a 9mm can, and a .308 can. The .22 can is pellet gun quiet, the others yield a little noise but substantially reduce noise.
How anyone opposes a can is beyond me. My 11.5 5.56 upper with the YHM Phantom .308 tames the noise and muzzle flash substantially.
Great investments, and hellacool. As a bonus, my having them drives the gun bigots insane. It’s a win/win and well worth the cost of the tax stamps.
@Alex: The permit to purchase a crossbow is for any crossbow.
Under NCGS § 14‑402, it mandates a permit for both pistols and crossbows. The bill was first enacted in 1919 and amended over the years
I don’t think we can blame the new residents to NC for either part of that bill. The pistol permit part was intended to prevent blacks from having pistols and the crossbow part (I’m guessing) was in response to supposed poaching. The law allowing crossbows to be used for hunting by non-disabled hunters only went into effect this year.
I can go to Tennessee, SC, Georgia, or Virginia and buy a crossbow with no questions asked. If I do buy one, that is how I’ll do it. From where I live, I can be in some part of all those states within an hour or two.
So, NC’s pistol permit law dates back to the Jim Crow era? It was to prevent blacks from owning pistols? I never knew that. This old law in NC still needs to get chucked if you ask me. What’s also ironic is that I’ll bet it will probably be present day black Democrats in NC who will oppose all efforts to repeal this law, along with most of the rest of NC’s present day Democrats.