We think guns are supposed to be loud. Eardrum-damaging loud. Gunpowder-exploding-next-to-your-ear loud. Well, a lot of manufacturers are now showing that guns don’t have to roar, potentially cause hearing loss, and annoy the neighbors. Gun-rights groups have been lobbying state by state to change laws and allow citizens to purchase and use silencers (also known as “suppressors”). They’ve had a lot of beneath-the-national-radar success. People in 41 states can now legally buy silencers (see the American Suppressor Association’s website for all the details on your state). This has set of an innovative race by manufactures to create smaller, better, more practical silencers.
Okay, before getting into this emerging market, we need to address pop-culture head-on. When guns are quiet, as in silenced, we think of 007 or perhaps an assassin in a Hollywood thriller screwing a silencer onto the end of a pistol. When you see that you know someone is about to be silenced forever, a very deadly connotation. Also, in the movies, silenced guns make this little pssst sound, hardly more than a sigh. That’s also Hollywood fantasy.
Read the complete article: Forbes