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A Republican trifecta in Washington next year will likely see action on a bill to remove firearm suppressors from National Firearms Act regulation after 82 years.
The Hearing Protection Act was introduced last October by U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., and currently has 78 bipartisan co-sponsors from 34 states. Since then, the HPA has been among the top 10 most-viewed bills on Congress.gov almost every week since it was introduced.
However, with a slim Republican majority in the Senate unable to override a near-certain veto from President Obama, the bill has been in doldrums.
Now, with the White House under new management next year, advocates for the measure feel signs are looking up and will likely return to the next Congress with a fresh mandate.
Why is this important? Safety has been increasing in nearly every aspect and product since the beginning of time, but allowing people to protect their hearing by adding silencers to their weapons has been a tough road for gun owners for a long while.
“Imagine for a second that we lived in a world where you had to pay a $200 tax to buy a pair of earplugs,” Knox Williams, president of the American Suppressor Association, the industry trade group for the devices, told Guns.com on Wednesday. “Now, imagine that even after paying that tax you still had to wait 8 months before you could bring your earplugs home with you. As silly as that sounds, it’s the world we live in with suppressors in the NFA.”
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday November 21 2016, @05:42PM
Alternate solution: A pair of earplugs / earmuffs that are in fact speakers, hooked up to microphones on the outside of the headset. When it's quiet they relay the sounds of the environment (using software to recreate the stereo information, so you can hear where a sound is coming from) into the user's ears. However harmfully loud noises (ie gunfire) are not passed through at full volume, thus protecting the ears.
Presto! Hearing protection when you need it, ability to listen the rest of the time, no need to be fiddling about with ear-gear in the middle of your constitutionally-protected bunny slaughtering session.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @06:22PM
Already exists, dickhead
https://www.amazon.com/RangeGuard-Electronic-Hearing-Protector-RG-OTH-4/dp/B00UAM0MFG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 [amazon.com]
but really isn't applicable to hunting since you can't localize sounds (nor do they have a wide enough frequency response), and adding in signal processing will triple the costs.
The NR isn't sufficient for certain weapons though, and with prolonged use, you get a sensory deprivation effect.
Any other things you are wholly ignorant about that I can illuminate for you?
(Score: 1) by Chrontius on Friday November 25 2016, @11:04AM
These exist, but they're $pendy. Especially if you get into communications capable ear protection, you'll rapidly go from $50 to $1000 - only to get you the ability to effectively use walkie-talkies like you had before the earmuffs. Anonymous coward is completely correct, if also an unnecessarily abrasive asshole. My Ryobi muffs are generally considered to be "hitting above their class" but don't allow adequate proprioception, passive awareness, or 3D positional audio. They don't fit with hard hats, and they don't play nice with eye protection for chainsaw duty. They are the best on the market, but they're still the best of the worst.
Adding phone connection means it's going to suck. There's no good way to do this - phones' processors and heat sinks are optimized around anything but real-time signal-processing. You'll kill the battery, and have constant audio dropouts. Plus the driver app is likely to sell your real-time GPS coordinates to the highest bidder. Putting a dedicated ASIC into the headset is what the military does - it's also why they cost $1000.
Even double-plugged, (Surefire's impulse-noise-filtering earplugs under Ryobi smart earmuffs) the asshole next to me with the high-pressure rifle makes me flinch. It's not just about the noise, it's about getting slapped in the face with a hot sponge. (There's no real comparison for that feeling, alas - you're way too close to a violent explosion, and while it's harmless, your hindbrain doesn't want to listen when you tell it to sit down and shut up!)