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Changed line(s) 7,8 (click to see context) from:
Even with a handgun, supersonic ammunition is effectively impossible to silence, as the crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier will still be quite audible. Subsonic ammunition produces a sound similar to a very loud stapler, with much of that noise being from the motion of the slide as the weapon cycles. That a shot has been fired will still be pretty obvious to everyone with functional ears, as long as they are close enough: the sound of the action cycling travels a much shorter distance than the sound of a bullet firing.
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Even with a handgun, supersonic ammunition is effectively impossible to silence, as the crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier will still be quite audible. Subsonic ammunition produces a sound similar to a very loud stapler, with much of that noise being from the motion of the slide as the weapon cycles. That a shot has been fired will still be pretty obvious to everyone with functional ears, ears (especially once the empty shell casing hits the ground), as long as they are close enough: the sound of the action cycling travels a much shorter distance than the sound of a bullet firing.
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I assume the author there was alluding to Al Capone? Since he was definitely relevant, I generalized "mob hitmen" to "mobsters" and called it close enough
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Due to the Hollywood-fueled perception that silencers are primarily used to aid and abet crime, private ownership or possession of a silencer is illegal in several U.S. states, including California and New Jersey. In the states where silencers aren't illegal, there is still a Federal approval procedure that has to be followed (which can take anywhere from months to more than a year, because only a small number of officials are assigned to approving purchases of silencers and other devices regulated under the National Firearms Act[[note]]Other NFA items include machine guns, short-barreled rifles and [[SawedOffShotgun shotguns]], and very high-caliber (as in larger than .50 caliber) firearms. Silencers, however, are the the most common NFA items, probably because they're less expensive and fewer states outright ban them[[/note]]) and a $200 Federal tax that has to be paid in order to purchase one. This is why the average Hollywood silencer is just a metal tube and still produces a large muzzle flash; Hollywood prop masters don't want to pay thousands of dollars replacing and registering worn-out working silencers. It is also a common topic of complaint among gun advocates; ''[[InsistentTerminology suppressors]]'' only reduce the sound of gunshots to that of a nail gun, and would be far simpler, cheaper and more effective (a metal tube and rubber washers) than $5 earplugs or $12-$35 earmuffs at preventing ear damage - if not for the $200 tax stamp and a ludicrously long waiting period (up to an entire year after getting grilled by the Feds). Societal ignorance of why suppressors were regulated has to do with the actual reasons behind the regulation: "Silenced" hunting rifles were used to poach deer during the Great Depression as desperate people with guns looked for ways to get food. As the poachers were hunting on federally controlled property, their crimes became high-degree felonies. To prevent smuggling and serious depopulation of deer, the NFA simply made suppressors extremely impractical for ordinary people to buy. The masses of the time took it to mean that the Feds were trying to weed out Mob hitmen and arrest them for tax evasion, thus suppressors are nowadays associated with gang-related crime despite the impractical nature of attempting to conceal a suppressed weapon on one's person in the first place.
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Due to the Hollywood-fueled perception that silencers are primarily used to aid and abet crime, private ownership or possession of a silencer is illegal in several U.S. states, including California and New Jersey. In the states where silencers aren't illegal, there is still a Federal approval procedure that has to be followed (which can take anywhere from months to more than a year, because only a small number of officials are assigned to approving purchases of silencers and other devices regulated under the National Firearms Act[[note]]Other NFA items include machine guns, short-barreled rifles and [[SawedOffShotgun shotguns]], and very high-caliber (as in larger than .50 caliber) firearms. Silencers, however, are the the most common NFA items, probably because they're less expensive and fewer states outright ban them[[/note]]) and a $200 Federal tax that has to be paid in order to purchase one. This is why the average Hollywood silencer is just a metal tube and still produces a large muzzle flash; Hollywood prop masters don't want to pay thousands of dollars replacing and registering worn-out working silencers. It is also a common topic of complaint among gun advocates; ''[[InsistentTerminology suppressors]]'' only reduce the sound of gunshots to that of a nail gun, and would be far simpler, cheaper and more effective (a metal tube and rubber washers) than $5 earplugs or $12-$35 earmuffs at preventing ear damage - if not for the $200 tax stamp and a ludicrously long waiting period (up to an entire year after getting grilled by the Feds). Societal ignorance of why suppressors were regulated has to do with the actual reasons behind the regulation: "Silenced" hunting rifles were used to poach deer during the Great Depression as desperate people with guns looked for ways to get food. As the poachers were hunting on federally controlled property, their crimes became high-degree felonies. To prevent smuggling and serious depopulation of deer, the NFA simply made suppressors extremely impractical for ordinary people to buy. The masses of the time took it to mean that the Feds were trying to weed out Mob hitmen Mobsters and arrest them for [[UsefulNotes/AlCapone tax evasion, evasion]], thus suppressors are nowadays associated with gang-related crime despite the impractical nature of attempting to conceal a suppressed weapon on one's person in the first place.
