“A Boy Scouts camp in Maine [not shown] is now using silencers — the controversial devices that muffle the sound of gunshots — as part of their marksmanship training, thanks to donations from various firearms companies and coordinating efforts by pro-silencer groups,” news.vice.com writes. Wait. What? What’s controversial about silencers/suppressors, exactly? In the middle of an excellent report on the ten silencers Gemtech and SilencerCo donated to Maine’s Camp William Hind Boy Scout facility, and a look at the history and future of suppressors, Vice scouts for an anti-gun org ready to accuse the Boy Scouts of training future assassins. Not so easy, eh. Mr. Bond? Somehow, they manage . . .
Yet despite the negative reputation of being a tool for quiet killers, few gun control groups have an official position against silencers. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence declined to speak to VICE News about the issue, saying the group does not have a specific stance on suppressors. The Violence Policy Center also declined to comment on the issue of silencers.
New Yorkers Against Gun Violence does not have a specific position on silencers, but the group’s director, Leah Gun Barrett, told VICE News that silencers “are notorious for people being able to snuff out other people’s lives silently. Any of these things in the hands of civilians are unnecessarily dangerous and can be misused.”
Gun companies “are going to dress up [silencers] as being okay, as being actually a reduction in noise pollution,” she said, “when actually it’s an increase in gun pollution and gun injury.”
Gun pollution? Next thing you know the antis will claim firearms contribute to global warming. Still, fair’s fair. Vice does a credible job explaining the ins and outs of suppressors without once referring to Silent Scope. Winning. [h/t Jeff Three]