Following the horrific events in Las Vegas on Sunday, the gun control debate has flared up once more. Battered by the deadliest mass shooting in American history, the mood of the debate is understandably pessimistic.
Rare is the op-ed writer who supports gun control and actually expects anything to change. Despite this, there exists some gun-related news that no amount of jaded pessimism can soften. There is a new bill being deliberated in the House — misleadingly named the Hearing Protection Act of 2017 — that would eliminate taxes on firearm silencers and change their legal classification. Rather than accessories to firearms, silencers would be sold as actual firearms, subjecting them to far fewer restrictions.
Simply put, this is lunacy.
There is no rational argument to be made for the necessity of silencers. The only one put forth by proponents of the bill is the protection of gun users’ hearing. This is a laudable goal, but other means, such as protective earphones, can achieve it.
Gun silencers actively help criminals, and actively hinder law enforcement. There is no possible reason a person would use a silencer besides not wanting to draw attention to themselves. The applicability to criminality is obvious, but so is the uselessness of silencers in any other situation. In a self-defense scenario, a gun user should want to attract police attention. When hunting, passerby should be warned of the possibility of incoming fire by the sound of gunfire, rather than be delightfully surprised when silenced fire strikes them.
It must also be pointed out the role that silencers might have played this weekend in Las Vegas if Stephen Paddock had had them. Crucially, first responders were able to triangulate his location through the sound of his gunfire. It reportedly took survivors awhile to recognize that what they believed to be fireworks was actually automatic weapon fire.
Imagine — if it is even possible to conceive numbers of casualties like this — the excess damage that could have been done if people had remained unaware of the gunfire. We apparently live in a world where people can rain death and destruction from the sky with instruments they purchase legally. At the very least, we should be able to figure out where they are when they do this.
This is an argument so obvious that it should not be necessary. Yet here, the country is in the wake of yet another massacre. It will have no effect on laws dealing strictly with guns themselves. Likely its only effect on this bill will be to push the inevitable passage back in the legislative schedule. We have gone so far down the rabbit hole that a crime-enabling law will pass both houses of our legislature.
The secret of these laws is no longer a secret — it is all about the money. National Rifle Association cash is being funneled to Republican congressmen who then introduce anti-gun control bills. This, unsurprisingly, leads to more profit for the gun industry, which, also unsurprisingly, is a heavy donator to the NRA.
The cycle, should it continue this way, appears to be endless, with little evidence it will ever stop. There has been shooting after shooting after shooting, and the battleground seems to have switched from actual guns to their accessories.
A significant percentage of Americans believe the only way to ensure safety in a first world nation is to be armed to the teeth, and they have a powerful lobby to ensure that they can remain so. Maybe the pessimism in our national conversation is justified. Maybe all we have left to offer are our thoughts and prayers.
Stop calling it a “silencer”. It is a suppressor. You obviously know nothing about guns. You are just a scared liberal that believes criminals obey gun laws. You think 140dB is silent? If so you are clueless to sound travel. You watch too many movies to believe it makes the sound a bullets fire “silent”. As far as making it “easy” for criminals to hide their gun shots, do you really think they care? Do you think in Chicago, with their more than necessary strict gun laws, it would make criminals more likely to kill? No, if they want to kill, they will kill, no law or restriction will prevent that. Murder is already illegal and it doesn’t stop them. As for hunting, it will not make people get hit by “silent” bullets. Having to wear muffs already brings most bullets lower than the suppressor anyway. A lot of hunters want the HPA to pass as a means of making it less likely that hunting will take such a toll on their hearing. Get educated on guns before you put your fingers to the keys. Learn what the 2nd Amendment really is. Taking guns from law abiding citizens or making more restrictions will never prevent mass shootings. No law will ever keep guns out of a criminal’s hands. No criminal will look a “Gun Free Zone” sign and obey it, they will relish in the fact that average police response is 11 minutes and no one inside will return fire. Vegas was a tragedy, however if someone would have plowed in to the crowd with a large box truck, they would have easily killed more than 58 or 59 people. However we would not be talking about banning box trucks now would we? Anything can kill in the hands of someone who wants to kill. Gun do not make people violent, the human race has been violent since the beginning. The components for murder are sold in every store in the world. Guns are just an easy out to blame.