“I’m okay with it if we arm the bears with silencers too,” Unapologeticdemocrat comments underneath Some Hunters Want Gun Silencers at spokesman.com. “Oh the heck with it. Just let these guys also have bazookas and let them blow up any place where they want to kill their game animals. That might make them happy. I’m not against hunting (God forbid in Idaho), but I think some of these guys with their scopes, suppressors, incredibly high powered semi-automatic weapons have just gotten a little nuts in the way they want to hunt. Next they are going to want to use drones with hell fire missiles to get their big game.” Your problem being? Funny I should ask . . .
Steve Kilpatrick, executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, said his group opposes allowing hunting with silencers on ethical grounds.
“We already have a lot of tools, and a lot of them are toys I guess, with GPS units, night-vision scopes, high-powered rifles with ballistic scopes that allow you to kill critters at 800 to 1,000 yards, four-wheelers, four-wheel drives – the list is quite long,” Kilpatrick said. “And we don’t really see the need for silencers, especially for the hunting of game animals.”
So that’s the “suppressor equipped rifles give hunters too much of an edge” objection well and truly covered. Otherwise, it’s a question of enabling poaching (the reason suppressors were outlawed in the first place) and safety.
Kim Floyd, spokesman for the Wyoming Federal of Union Sportsmen, said his group also opposes the prospect of allowing silencers for hunting, calling it “a poacher’s dream.” He said any hunters truly concerned about the effect on their hearing from shooting at game can carry earplugs.
Floyd questioned why Wyoming would want to allow silencer use. “I want to know who’s in that drainage with me,” he said. “If they’re shooting a gun, I want to hear that gun. I want to know where these other hunters are. It just absolutely makes no sense to us. Why we would open that can of worms? I don’t care how many other states have this law in effect, it’s just a really, really bad law for Wyoming.”
Really? Once again, the media pretends to present a fair and balanced firearms-related story without covering the benefits of eliminating infringements on Americans’ Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
How many hunters have suffered hearing loss because they couldn’t use sound suppression technology on their rifle? How much noise pollution do non-suppressed rifles create in rural areas? How many women avoid the shooting sports because of noise levels that would otherwise be illegal?
And what of those other states where hunting with a suppressor-equipped rifle is legal? Any increase in poaching? Homicides? I guess it’s just wishful thinking to believe that public policy should be based on fact rather than supposition and that firearms freedom should be the government’s default position.