Moderators and shooter safety

Below is arelevant brief story exerpt from the USA-based 6mmBR website with anopen letter to politicians regarding the desirability of allowing theunregistered universal use of moderators (here referred to assuppressors). I’d offer in addition that if you trust your peopleenough to allow firearms ownership, then what is really the problemwith moderators, apart from a false perception of their generallawful status?

TheNSW Game Council submission on the subject has been rejected based onthese perceptions about a month ago but it is still appropriate tokeep the justification for moderator use front and centre with theNSW Government (and others) to let the politicians know howill-advised that initial rejection was. So feel free to use theextract below to inform your local members that this problem for themwill not go away until they see reason

Pic by Ken Jones, one of our NZ-based writers who routinely uses moderators hunting.

MarcusO’Dean

Editor

Message to Politicians —Suppressors Will Save Tax Dollars
Here is an interestingfinding from the 1992 Finland Suppressor Project: “The unit priceof a mass-produced suppressor may be reduced to $50 to $70 (1992prices). [This low cost] will make cost-effectiveness of thesuppressor far better than that of any shooting range[sound-proofing]… and, actually, also better than thecost-effectiveness of hearing protection, especially when severalpersons are present while just one of them is shooting at a time.”Too bad most politicians can’t seem to understand these points.They still view suppressors as evil tools employed by gangsters,rather than proven safety devices that will reduce noise pollution.

Is the“price of noise” something we really need to consider from apublic policy standpoint? Absolutely. In 2004 the VeteransAdministration paid out $633.8 million in compensation to 378,982vets whose main disability is hearing loss. Only a small fraction ofthose vets saw combat; most damaged their hearing during weaponstraining activities.