While American hunters often view suppressors through the lens of tactical equipment or “tacticool” accessories, European hunting culture has long embraced these devices as essential tools for ethical, efficient and considerate hunting practices. The stark contrast between European and American approaches to suppressor use in hunting offers valuable insights that could reshape how U.S. hunters view and utilize these important tools.
Historical Context
In many European countries, particularly in Scandinavia, the use of suppressors for hunting has been not just accepted but expected for decades. Countries like Finland, Norway and Sweden have long considered it discourteous and potentially unsafe to hunt without a suppressor. This cultural difference stems from a broader European hunting philosophy that emphasizes environmental stewardship, respect for both game and neighboring properties and hunter safety above all else (including hearing protection).
The European Perspective on Noise Pollution
European hunters have developed a thorough understanding of how hunting-related noise affects both wildlife and neighboring communities. In densely populated countries where hunting grounds often border residential areas, suppressors serve as a practical solution for maintaining positive relationships with nonhunting neighbors. This approach has helped preserve hunting traditions in areas where urban sprawl might otherwise have created conflicts between hunters and residents.
Safety and Communication Benefits
One often-overlooked advantage of suppressor use in European hunting is the enhanced ability to communicate effectively in the field. Without the need for heavy ear protection, hunting parties can maintain clear verbal communication, leading to safer and more coordinated hunts. This practical benefit has particular relevance in driven hunts, where multiple hunters and drivers must coordinate their movements and actions.
Impact on Wildlife Management
European game managers have observed that suppressed hunting provides distinct advantages in wildlife management programs. The reduced noise signature allows for more effective culling of pest species and more efficient harvest of game animals, as nearby animals are less likely to be startled by the sound of gunfire. This efficiency has proven particularly valuable in population control efforts and in maintaining healthy wildlife numbers across relatively small hunting territories.
Technical Considerations and Equipment
European hunters typically employ what Americans might consider “premium” suppressors, often integrated into the rifle’s design rather than treated as an aftermarket accessory. These purpose-built hunting suppressors focus on optimal balance, lightweight materials and durability rather than maximum sound reduction. The rifles typically have shorter barrels to accommodate the suppressor. The emphasis remains on practical field use rather than achieving the lowest possible decibel readings.
Training and Education Differences
The European approach to hunter education places significant emphasis on proper suppressor use and maintenance. New hunters learn about the benefits of suppressors not just for noise reduction, but as tools that can improve accuracy by reducing flinch response and managing recoil. This educational foundation helps create a culture where suppressors are viewed as essential hunting equipment rather than exotic accessories.
Conservation and Ethical Considerations
European hunters have long recognized that suppressors contribute to more ethical hunting practices. The reduced noise signature helps maintain a calmer hunting environment, potentially leading to better shot placement and cleaner harvests. Additionally, the ability to maintain situational awareness without hearing protection allows hunters to better monitor their surroundings and make more informed shooting decisions.
Legal Framework and Cultural Acceptance
Unlike the United States, where suppressors face significant regulatory hurdles, many European countries treat them as standard hunting equipment. This legal framework has allowed for the development of a hunting culture where suppressor use is normalized and their benefits are widely understood and appreciated. The resulting marketplace has driven innovation in suppressor design specifically for hunting applications.
Licensing and Access Considerations
The contrast between European and American approaches extends beyond just suppressor use to the fundamental process of becoming a hunter. In many European countries, obtaining a hunting license involves a rigorous education program that can span several months to a year, covering everything from wildlife biology and conservation to practical marksmanship and field craft. Interestingly, once licensed, European hunters often find acquiring a suppressor to be a straightforward process – in many cases, it’s as simple as purchasing any other hunting accessory.
This stands in stark contrast to the American system, where basic hunting licenses can sometimes be obtained through brief online courses, but suppressor acquisition requires extensive paperwork, long wait times, and a $200 tax stamp per device. For instance, in Finland, a hunter who has completed their mandatory education and licensing can typically walk into a hunting shop and purchase a suppressor over the counter, while their annual hunting permits for specific game species might actually require more documentation. This system reflects the European view of suppressors as standard hunting tools rather than restricted items requiring special oversight.
Practical Field Applications
European hunting practices demonstrate numerous practical advantages of suppressor use. From reducing noise pollution in populated areas to improving shot placement and follow-up shot capability, these benefits directly translate to the American hunting context. The European experience shows that suppressors can enhance both the effectiveness and enjoyment of hunting while promoting positive relationships with nonhunting communities.
Lessons for American Hunters and Legislators
As American hunters continue to gain access to suppressors through evolving federal and state regulations, the European model offers valuable lessons in their practical implementation. The emphasis on suppressors as tools for ethical hunting rather than tactical accessories provides a framework for changing perceptions and promoting wider acceptance. American hunters, and our legislators, can benefit from adopting this more practical, conservation-minded approach to suppressor use.
Looking Forward
The European approach to hunting with suppressors offers valuable insights for American hunters looking to enhance their hunting practices. By understanding and adopting elements of European hunting culture, American hunters can work toward a future where suppressors are recognized as valuable tools for ethical, efficient and considerate hunting. This cultural shift could contribute to the long-term sustainability of hunting traditions while promoting positive relationships with broader communities.
When our dogs see rifles they go inside because they know the bangs are coming. All this mother-may-I over cans is nothing but pure demoCrap…which some sleazy tacticools profit from.
When my dogs see guns they know it’s time to go hunting.
Thanx for info
If you’re going to start parroting NTexas it needs to look like this:
GREAT GUN. THANKS FOR THE INFOR.
One of the nice things about hunting in Nee Zealand on different trips is that silencers are considered normal and there are NO restrictions on their use.
You are considered rude if you don’t use one near houses or people.
RCC,
I am pretty new to shooting with suppressors and my limited experience revealed that shooting supersonic ammunition is still incredibly loud due to the supersonic crack that the bullet generates as it whizzes through the air. As far as I know, this is universal and there is no method which can eliminate or even reduce it.
Have you noticed the same–that supersonic bullets still cause a painfully loud “gunshot” (which is not an actual gunshot technically speaking although it is part of the total sound that the gunshot generates)? If so, is the very loud supersonic crack still very aggravating to neighbors and thus significantly reduces the good will that we think suppressors generate with the public?
For clarity I am not looking to reduce the societal value of suppressors–I recently bought some myself and encourage everyone to buy them. I am simply wondering if the oft-cited good will that they supposedly generate for people who are not so enthusiastic about firearms and hunting is significantly overestimated, at least when using supersonic ammunition anyway.
Uncommon
I don’t claim to be an expert based on 5 trips to NZ but the borrowed .270 seemed much quieter than my .243 or 30-06 at home at the firing point.
Down range probably no different from the point of view of projectiles in the air as the speed is the same but most people don’t notice that as much as you would think. I have had thousands of 7.62 (.308) go over me while helping at rifle range and not that loud once you are 200 metres down range.
The only way that I’ve ever noticed serious “loudness” to a passing projectile that far from the bore was if it passed by something hard and flat, like a stone, concrete, brick or cinderblock wall that reflected the sound extremely well and did it at the correct angle in reference to me.
A bullet travelling parallel, and reasonably close, to a hard wall makes a rather interesting noise as it goes by. It takes that crack of it passing by and stretches the sound out to something like the air, or a very large and thick piece of paper being torn.
Our
legislatorsOverlords want to create as many headwinds as possible to firearm ownership AND hunting. Significantly increasing our difficulty to obtain suppressors is a classic “twofor” (as in “two for the price of one”).The first (and obvious) “benefit” for our Overlords: making considerate firearm ownership ever more difficult and expensive. Clearly, the tax on suppressors increases their cost. And, up until very recently, the common 12+ month wait time for ATF to approve suppressor ownership increased their difficulty.
The second (and far less obvious) “benefit” for our Overlords: effectively denying our ability to acquire suppressors makes shooting loud which aggravates neighbors and predisposes them to vote for laws which prohibit firearm ownership and use. Along the same vein, making shooting loud degrades hunting and, more importantly, decreases support for hunting which predisposes voters to vote for laws which limit or outright prohibit hunting.
That last bit (making hunting loud decreases support for hunting and predisposes voters to vote for laws against hunting) is a “twofor” within the original “twofor”. It makes firearm ownership more expensive/difficult AND it fires up the animal rights crowd to vote for Democrats and against Republicans.
True.
It would also be helpful to sideline the FUDDs and those *informed* by Hollywood or an anti-Hollywood bias.
Having an internal war between the people who think suppressors don’t do anything and those who think it makes them movie-magic quiet isn’t productive.
The thing that’s driven me nuts about both the 2A community and the Right in general for a long, long time is the absolute inability to form up ranks before going into battle and then letting everything devolve into amateur hour as soon as resistance is met.
People have the right to speak or otherwise express themselves, true, but it would be nice if they knew when not to.
If we marched in lockstep and gave up our freedom and identity then we become the left.
Chaos is in our dna, I think.
Several things.
1. The Left does not march in lockstep basically, well, ever. You simply think they do because they do possess a level of public messaging discipline that you do not. Which is to say that they do not generally air their dirty laundry in public. You have to kind of look for it. This is why they openly say “Respect the diversity of tactics”. Cons could learn from that, a lot actually.
2. You have no need to “give up [y]our freedom and identity”. Anyone who suggests this is entirely unimaginative, and I might add, utterly useless. Either that or they’re actively compromised.
Simply look at Alex Jones, regardless of your opinion of the man. He can chat with Tim Pool (moderate classical liberal), Joe Rogan (liberal classical liberal) or even Tucker Carlson (very conservative classical liberal) and in no case does he have to give up his personality or his identity. He manages to find, with all three of these examples, far more common ground than he finds areas of dispute. Where there is dispute, it’s generally mild to moderate and good natured. The real truth as to why is very simple; Whatever else he might be, he’s not a shill.
3. If this level of chaos is “in [y]our DNA”, then, over time, you are doomed and the absolute best you can hope for is the occasional victory prolonging the life that Conservatism clings to.
But it’s not “chaos in your DNA”.
The vast majority of Libertarians can figure this out and, trust me, we’re far, far, far more chaotic than you could ever hope to be on your worst day with a fresh TBI, a bottle of hard liquor, a fistful of pharmies and a truckload of hard drugs onboard. In the macro you might think you’re D-Fens but, at worst, you’re Hank Hill.
[Insert explanation of how the vast majority of self-identified Libertarians are anything but, just the same way that the vast majority of anarchists are anything but. Also note the delicious irony of Tankies spray painting an A in a circle on a wall.]
Your problem is not that chaos is in your DNA. It’s that you suck at picking leadership because as a group you pay little attention and prefer personalities to institutions. It’s the combination that’s the killer.
You either have to be careful and selective about picking people each and every cycle or roll with institutional power that’s been crafted with an eye towards a long term goal and which will gatekeep internally as part of reaching that goal. Want to know how I know that Cons suck at this, and the 2A community in particular is bad at it? Let’s go find Wayne LaPierre for a chat, shall we?
At this point you eschew the former and don’t have the latter. As such the people Cons pick either have no staying power, no spine or sell you out in a heartbeat.
For all the blather from Lefties, the Right really doesn’t have much of an activist wing, which is much to the Right’s detriment. The movement, honestly, has no real vetting process or mechanism to hold people accountable within the movement itself. The result is that it can achieve amazing short-term results and then p**s them all away as soon as it loses an election.
As I’m wont to say, politics is a knife fight in a telephone booth. But it’s also a deadly serious thing once you win. You’re basically handing a group of people a high level of control over a series of interlocking complicated and complex systems and hoping the Christ that they manage the suprasystem in a logical way.
This is Mike Benz’ current concern, and it’s much more well founded than most Conservatives will ever admit.
From a political optics point of view I think I’d be delicate about introducing this line of argument, focusing on the safety aspect not the “we can learn from Europe” aspect.
Otherwise you’ll get riders attached by the pearl-clutchers about how hard it is to get guns in the first place and, and by saying “iTz EuRopEaN!” you’ll have given them the argumentative ground for “reasonable restrictions” in the Euro model, an argument I’d rather not rehash forevermore and a fire I’d really rather not add fuel to.
Realistically, I’d actually not make this argument public at all. I’d direct it at appropriate members of the Trump Admin and suggest that they do the one thing GOPers generally don’t do, exercise power, and thereby return rights to the US citizens while infuriating the Left with all the winning.
strych9,
Your point is spot-on. Civilian disarmament advocates can point to the European model and say that they will happily allow unfettered access to suppressors once we copy Europe’s several months-long and incredibly expensive/intrusive/burdensome vetting/training/licensing processes.
I will add another somewhat related caution: civilian disarmament advocates could absolutely require suppressors on all firearms which would radically increase the cost (and potentially the timeframe as well) to firearm ownership.
Imagine wanting to purchase an inexpensive semi-auto pistol for $400 and learning that you also MUST purchase a $600 suppressor for it, more than doubling the cost of ownership.
Now throw in the fact that people who own firearms would have to pay gunsmiths to thread the barrels of the approximately 400 million firearms that we already own. Aside from that additional expense (around $150), it would take decades for gunsmiths to thread all of those barrels.
And we won’t even discuss the firearms where threading the barrel is problematic, such as revolvers where suppressors cause huge back pressure which blasts dangerous gas jets out of the cylinder-barrel gap. Or how about firearms with blade sites at the muzzle that a gunsmith would have to move farther back on the barrel? Next up: firearms with tube magazines that extend almost all the way to the muzzle and do not allow enough length of barrel to thread for a suppressor? Last but not least: retrofitting shotguns for suppressors–fuggedaboutit. Fortunately, we don’t have to consider retrofitting muzzleloaders for suppressors because those are not actually firearms under federal law.
In some states black powder firearms are considered firearms if your a prohibited person.
Check your local laws.
…civilian disarmament advocates could absolutely require suppressors on all firearms…
Given their preferred tactics, I’d kinda doubt this. They prefer to hang you with the rope you’ve already made.
I’ve talked to several of them who’ve suggested that one of the ways to do this is to blend gun control with the War on Drugs to an even greater degree than has already occurred.
The proposals have varied a bit but the general gist is to dissolve the ATF to get Rightwingers foaming at the mouth with glee and then quietly roll it into the DEA while promulgating rules that owning guns requires one to be a legal owner in good standing (a Euro concept in some regards) and then use the DEA aspect of what they’ve done to crawl up gun owners’ asses multiple times a year to maintain that “good standing” status.
For example, imagine a having to take two or three random UAs a year to keep your guns and that the UAs are equivalent to being on probation, meaning they cover booze and Rx meds as well. Pop hot and you lose your guns until you justify your hot p**s, which by the by takes a year of paperwork and some court appearances.
How to manage such a system? Block grants to the states.
Since Rightwingers love the WoD, they can’t much complain about showing how nice and law abiding they are. “They always brag about having nothing to hide on this front, so let’s make them put their money where their mouth is” being the general concept.
Also dovetails nicely with civil asset forfeiture, warrentless stops, abuse of probable cause etc. All things that have been pointed out to me by Lefty gun control fans.
Amazing what you can find out by making *friends* with the right people in the right departments.
Do not drink or do drugs.
Freedom is the choice to chose what a society allocates.
This is, bar none, one of the strangest replies I’ve ever gotten on TTAG.
We had a few counties in “Red” NY do piss tests for pistol permits and I might know one or two people posting online you could have been talking to on this topic. (Long Island region if applicable) and yeah while it was for the moment killed by repeated court action it was very much a hard push from near NYC “conservatives”. Insidious power trips and petty officials abound.
…and I might know one or two people posting online you could have been talking to on this topic.
Perhaps in a manner of speaking since Statists are mostly interchangeable, but technically I rather doubt it since these people are ~1600 miles away from you.
I walk into these peoples’ offices and chat with them.
It ain’t hard once you act like you find their ideas interesting. Like many people, you make a few statements and they start talking… now you can ask some questions.
Sometimes they even give you the literal book.
That last part……yeah it’s actually quite amazing how a bit of neutral interest with maybe half-assed active listening can get you more details on how things run than a FOIL with a court order to back it up. Only just learning how downright awful most executive level opsec can be. I am still waiting for at least one to give out stuff with subtle information markers to help with identifying leakers but……..yeah Walmart/Waffle House. Or as one apt meme went, I was raised to expect a world that was hard and cruel but I never expected it to be so gay or retarded.
Lefty opsec at the academic level is, mostly, non-existent.
Some of the street level groups do have it and will enforce it with mafia-esque tactics and there are some specific departments/sub-departments that are .gov grant/security clearance areas of specialty (mostly in data science) with opsec that’s probably pretty good. I don’t test it or ever interact with them because… well, you’ve had a clearance, IIRC.
That said, generally academics love Q&A on their pet topics and, honestly, they can’t really have opsec in this regard because of the nature of what they do, which is transmit knowledge/data to others.
This is particularly true of law school profs.
It’s really rather hilarious when you think about it.
I don’t think I’d ever listen to any suggestion on anything Europe does. In every aspect, Europe has failed.
Not if your a peein on somebody else’s grave.