Firearms can harm your hearing
Hearing damage costs Australia billions. It reduces our quality of life. And it’s totally preventable. Every other English-speaking country allows the use of suppressors. Some even promote it; for good reason.
Centrefire pistols and rifles generate noises from 150 to 170 decibels. Without any protection, hearing damage is guaranteed. Sound moderators shave maybe 30 decibels off what is a VERY loud noise. Hearing protection is still required for users – they just get a bit less hearing damage.
But the Gun Police prefer hearing damage for you
There is virtually no use of suppressors to facilitate crimes in countries that permit suppressors. But there’s still just something about suppressors that the Gun Police hate. (The Gun Police are the firearms registry, not the ordinary hard-working plod.) Australian Border Force hates it too. A West Australian lawyer reports today on Facebook:
In the last 48 hours I have got a spate of calls from shooters who are being raided by Australian Border Force officers who are armed with search warrants and copies of private emails from the shooters ordering from overseas “solvent traps.” The ABF takes the view that these are in reality silencers and to import them is a Commonwealth offence.
Before anyone accuses us of criticising the Gun Police unfairly because “the law” doesn’t allow suppressors, we’d like to point out that Victoria and NSW allow suppressors to some extent. When we asked the Police in Victoria and NSW for the criteria or procedures by which they evaluate applications to own suppressors, we were met with extremely frosty refusals. One staff member from Victoria Police Licensing & Registration decision said, “Why do you want access to our procedures? Our procedures are private and not open to the public. You asking me for these is like me asking you for the processes you use in your private business.”
In Queensland, Weapons Licensing Branch has refused a formal application by a pest controller to use suppressors when destroying animals trapped in a regional town, even though they clearly have the power to issue an exemption that would allow the pest controller to use a suppressor.
It is the rabid anti-suppressor culture of the Gun Police (those police that license firearms and whisper in politician’s ears) that puts us in this situation.
Do you have an experience seeking permission to use suppressors? Get in touch on Facebook or through the contact page on this site.