OH:Legislators learn how silencers affect guns

 This is the typical reaction when people experience reality instead of the fantasies they have been fed all their lives about guns.

When most people think of a gun silencer, they think it’s “Hollywood quiet,” said Eric Eesley.

You know how it goes — when the bad guy in the movies or TV fires a gun with a silencer, it often sounds as if someone just spit out his gum.

Eesley, a salesman at Black Wing Shooting Center in Delaware, said he sells plenty of silencers, but he often has to first educate people about the reality. A silenced gun still makes quite a bang.

More than 20 lawmakers or their aides gathered yesterday at Black Wing to learn a similar lesson and hear from an expert on how silencers, or suppressors, can affect the noise levels of hunting rifles. The event was organized by the Buckeye Firearms Association in an effort to gain support for House Bill 234, which would allow hunting with a suppressor.

“The reduction in noise is a little easier on the ears,” Eesley said, adding that it can also reduce recoil, making the gun more accurate. “It makes it quite nice to shoot.”

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 “It seems to me the noise is still fairly significant,” said Rep. Mike Curtin, D-Marble Cliff, who said he hasn’t fired a gun since his days of ROTC training in 1970. “For me, unless I hear serious reservations from law enforcement or the Farm Bureau Federation, I’m not sure who would have problems with this legislation.”

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