bladeracer wrote:Gaznazdiak wrote:Just a thought, but most of those who are granted one of the rare permits to own and use a suppressor are vets and rangers for whom it is considered as an OH&S issue.
If they are allowed to protect their hearing during the few shots they fire in the course of their employment, is it not a form of discrimination to prohibit hunters and sporting shooters from having the same protection?
After all we are the people who do the most to protect the country from invasive pest species, at our own expense, yet we are denied the protection supplied by a harmless, inert metal tube.
Perhaps we are approaching the issue from the wrong angle.
Except that most of us shoot voluntarily, if we want to protect our hearing we can simply stop shooting.
Quite true, but I don't recall ever hearing of anyone being forced to be a vet or a ranger either.
I had occasion to ask the local member here why, he said we can use earmuffs. When I asked him why the military use suppressors instead of muffs his reasoning was that muffs reduce one's situational awareness, a valid point, when I asked him why civilian shooters stuational awareness was less important considering we shoot in areas where we also need to be certain of what is around us and down range, he suddenly lost interest and remembered an appointment and I was ushered out of his presence.