You know how utility companies add that unpleasant odor to natural gas so customers can tell if there’s a leak? It’s a little known fact that the inventor of the firearm similarly added that really loud bang sound as a safety feature, but the NRA is hoping to turn that around.
Sen. Chris Murphy is getting attention for his tweet, but his source is an opinion piece in Monday’s Washington Post by Robert J. Spitzer, political science professor and author of “Guns Across America,” which is not, unfortunately, an oversized coffee table book of firearms through the ages.
The NRA is wasting no time in trying to get rid of this important gun safety feature: https://t.co/DhkhLUidrt
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 23, 2017
I hope this happens quickly and you shed a bunch of crocodile tears over it.
— Michael (@DefinitelyMike) January 23, 2017
Murphy’s tweet leaves the reader in suspense, but the important gun safety feature Spitzer refers to is the noise guns make: “Gunfire — loud, sharp, rude, abrupt — is an important safety feature of any firearm.”
We’d read the noise of an AR-15, punctuated by explosions “loud like a bomb,” could cause the shooter himself disorientation, anxiety, illness, and “temporary PTSD,” but we’d never considered the sound “rude.” If good manners are everything to the anti-gun rights crowd, it seems they’d enjoy spending some time at the gun range, where everyone’s armed and very polite.
Obviously, Spitzer is alluding to the fact that gunfire (not to mention false reports of gunfire) can cause people to scatter in panic, but his concern isn’t so much the sale of noise suppressors as it is the NRA and its imperative “to eviscerate any and all gun laws.”
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Um, hello? Believe it or not, the NRA and its members don’t oppose all gun laws; it was President Obama who commuted the sentences of hundreds of felons charged with firearms violations, because he thought their mandatory sentences for drug possession with intent to distribute were too strict and outdated. Those prison bars actually were a safety feature, not to mention punishment for lawbreaking.
The sound of a gun shot is not a safety feature. It's called physics
— Luther News (@Luther_News) January 23, 2017
How does anyone take you seriously, @ChrisMurphyCT ? Have you ever even held a gun?
— Michelle Ray (@GaltsGirl) January 23, 2017
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/823678104438767618
Really? #gunsense has no shame claiming a hearing protection device is actually a #gunsafety feature if you don't use it.@ChrisMurphyCT
— Freedom isn’t free ?? (@RedFizo1) January 23, 2017
Chris Murphy thinks that guns being loud is a “safety feature.” Top job, whatever focus group that came from. https://t.co/JhbbbwxC0f
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) January 23, 2017
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/823678701237837825
The Prius has a quiet engine. Does @ChrisMurphyCT think that's an unsafe feature?
— Anthony Bialy (@AnthonyBialy) January 23, 2017
actually Toyota had to add 'noise' to the Prius engine in the first gen car because it was dangerous.
— Progressive Yankee (@ResistantYankee) January 23, 2017
Next thing you know, gun nuts will be claiming that Hollywood movies don’t portray guns and silencers accurately.
just so you know, a suppressor does NOT make a gun sound like James Bond is firing it @washingtonpost
— Joe Smith (@joe_smith80) January 23, 2017
Chris silencers are very expensive and I cannot remember the last time one was used in a crime. Great for practice and range
— Scott Wheeler (@scott_wheeler12) January 23, 2017
suppressors are not what you see in the movies, but then again you probably think clips=magazines
— Dr. Ratnick’s Austere Maine Coon (@bubba_jameson) January 23, 2017
Wait a minute. It Lengthens the Firearm, Making it HARDER TO CONCEAL FOR A CRIME, and knocks off a few dB. You're against that? #gunsense
— Noneya Business (@notmyname1939) January 23, 2017
https://twitter.com/atwater_x/status/823694174377705473
https://twitter.com/citizenrobertk/status/823610703080722432
Does YOUR suppressor totally eliminate your firearm's noise? Asking for a friend.
— SmilingAssassin27 (@RJCHVZ) January 23, 2017
It's a suppressor. It doesn't make the gun silent, ergo, not a "silencer." Volume level still about 130db. learn physics
— James Holland (@JHo_LikesCheese) January 23, 2017
Chainsaws are quieter, Heathcliffe.
Odd how you can't manage to find this is readily available info on the interwebs. @ChrisMurphyCT pic.twitter.com/JNFnId2ADd
— D.W.Robinson (@_DWRobinson) January 24, 2017
So you're saying a gunshot being say 130 decibels and not 160 is a safety feature?
…
How does that work Senator?— Bert Difig (@BertDifig1) January 24, 2017
This is what happens when people who know absolutely nothing about an issue want to make policy on that issue.
— Aaron Henager (@AaronHenager1) January 23, 2017
Sir, as a US Senator, your intellectual dishonesty by deliberately pushing these lies is appalling. You should be better.
— Realist & Curmudgeon (@PenguinsFan62) January 23, 2017
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