So help me understand this. Gun owners need silencers to protect their hearing and that of others at

[SunSeeker]

42. Wrong. From your own article:

This gets us to the other issue — whether a suppressor makes it “quiet,” as Gillibrand tweeted, and harder for law enforcement officials to detect, as she and ARS suggested.

A 30-decibel reduction in theory means an AR-15 rifle would have a noise equivalent of 132 decibels. That is considered equivalent to a gunshot or a jackhammer. A .22-caliber pistol would be 116 decibels, which is louder than a 100-watt car stereo. In all likelihood, the noise level is actually higher.

So what are opponents of the law talking about?

“We aren’t necessarily talking about being out in the middle of the woods deer hunting where it is extremely quiet. Instead, gun crimes often occur in cities and in other very noisy places,” said Marc Brumer, a Gillibrand spokesman. “The shots would be heard by law enforcement or witnesses at the gun’s typical decibel level, but they often cannot be heard when a silencer is added. There are many sounds in cities that are far louder than a gunshot masked by a silencer.”

A nightclub, he noted, has a sound level of 155 decibels, while a subway is 102 decibels. (Actually, while sound levels as high as 155 decibels have been detected in night clubs, that’s not an average and would be very damaging to a person’s hearing.)

“Relative to their normal decibel level, particularly in those urban environments where gun crime often occurs, I outlined in previous email, silencers make guns impossible to hear over many common sounds and therefore ‘quiet,’ ” Brumer said.