AAC has a nice little video demonstrating the benefits of suppressors (silencers):

See? It makes things quiet.

This is A Good Thing™.

For those of you that aren’t into guns, here’s some perspective.

Remember the last time some guy on a LOUD Harley passed you on the road? About rattled your fillings loose, didn’t it? You know why it’s that loud? Because he didn’t have a muffler on his exhaust. You likely take it for granted that almost every vehicle on the road has a muffler on their exhaust, else we’d all be blaring down the road making such a racket. Think about all that noise, and the silence a muffler brings.

A silencer is merely a muffler for a gun.

If we think mufflers are good things for cars, why are mufflers for guns a bad thing? Sure some people like loud things, but on the whole humans tend to not like loud — we’re not built for it, else loud noises wouldn’t cause hearing damage.

Yes, Hollywood has made us think that silencers are tools of assassins and make guns silent… or that they all make that one “thwip” sound (see Coconut Effect). Hardly the case, as the video demonstrates.

Some say it’s important to deny suppressors because poachers will use them. Well, it’s not like a bow and arrow make tons of noise. Furthermore, many countries around the world consider it bad form to hunt WITHOUT a suppressor because it’s rude to make so much noise.

So someone please explain to me why silencers are illegal in some parts of the US and highly regulated everywhere else? What is gained, other than keeping a lot of bureaucrats in a job processing tons of paperwork?

Yes, I’ve thought about getting a suppressor for a while now. Trouble has been what to get, not brand, but caliber. I think I’m settling on a .30 cal suppressor, and then looking at a rifle (perhaps SBR, as long as I have to deal with paperwork) in something like .300 AAC Blackout. Why? Because I can. Use? Probably hog hunting, and perhaps even exotics (e.g. fallow, sika, axis, red, blackbuck, etc.) since my reading of the TX P&W game rules is that you can’t use suppressors on game animals and exotics aren’t game animals, they’re exotics. Save my hearing while out in the field, a good thing.