While the left freaks out about the idea of people owning suppressors, it's in part because they don't know what they're talking about. They saw a suppressor in a movie and decided that anyone with one is either James Bond or a hitman.
But suppressors just make shooting a little safer, and Ohio just took a key step in making it safer for residents there.
To be specific, the state Senate just approved a measure that will make it easier for Ohio gun owners to get one.
The Ohio Senate on Wednesday took action to make mufflers and sound suppressors for firearms – sometimes called silencers – more accessible for gun owners.
Approved with bipartisan support, the bill is the latest in a series of moves to loosen up gun control laws.
The bill would remove firearm mufflers and suppressors, devices that diminish the sound of gunshots, from the list of dangerous ordinances. The list also includes grenades and torpedoes.
Ohio GOP lawmakers have moved in recent years to no longer require a permit to carry a concealed handgun in the state, lift training requirements for military service members and veterans to obtain a concealed-firearm permit, and remove the state’s ban on conceal-carry on college campuses and several other locations.
Proponents of Senate Bill 214, though, have focused on safety benefits. Sen. Kyle Koehler, a Clark County Republican, noted in committee testimony that the suppressors lower sound levels that can damage hearing.
“I can tell you that many law-abiding citizens own registered and stamped suppressors that they use with their firearms to prevent hearing damage and mitigate noise pollution,” he told the Armed Services, Veterans Affairs and Public Safety Committee last June.
For those who aren't really familiar with suppressors, let's understand what they are and what they aren't.
A suppressor uses a series of baffles to sort of absorb some of the sounds of the gunshot itself. It doesn't get it all, but it does help. So, you can still hear the sound of the round igniting in the chamber, even if a suppressor is being used. In fact, there are many suppressors that don't reduce it enough for you to be safe shooting without hearing protection. They help, but not when you're right there by the gun.
It just helps with anyone else at the range who might have had their hearing protection off while off the firing line for whatever reason.
The round itself is usually supersonic, which means the round is also causing sound, and no suppressor on the planet can silence that.
In other words, while a suppressor makes things quieter, it's not that little sound that's on par with you thumping the palm of your hand. That's Hollywood myth.
Yet that's where the objects come from on this. There's this idea that mass killers are going to go on a spree of buying up suppressors because they're marginally easier to get now and suddenly make it impossible for the police to respond to a mass shooting. That's not how it works, and suppressors have been available for over a century, and precisely one has been used in a mass shooting.
One.
Folks need to chill.
Meanwhile, the Second Amendment is about defending our nation against tyranny. Our military uses suppressors all the time, which is all the reason in the world why we should not just be able to get them, but should be able to order them off the internet and have them shipped directly to our house.
Again, some folks need to chill.
