Hunting: Nearly every hunting cartridge I’ve seen is supersonic out of ordinary-length barrels. The bullet will have struck the game before it could hear the bullet coming. Since suppressors only muffle the muzzle noise and leave the bullet supersonic, the use of suppressors would have no effect on the ability of game to detect the shot and try to get away.

Safety: You raise a good point. Of course, shooters should always have safety as the foremost thought in their mind, regardless of how loud their firearms are.

dc

Everyone I’ve taken to the range is quite aware of the fact that guns have the potential to be dangerous, even if they are a bit muffled. If there’s the least bit of confusion in this regard, I make reference to cars: cars have mufflers, yet this doesn’t affect the car’s ability to go fast (mechanics: please don’t flay me).

Very few of the people I take to the range are interested in hunting, so I don’t really mention it much. They just want to learn to shoot, be safe, and have fun. There can be a lot to take in all at once, so I try to keep extraneous information to a minimum.

Speaking of hunting, I found it interesting that Arizona prohibits using silencers while hunting, even if one is just shooting vermin like rats, prairie dogs, etc. I’m not really sure why they prohibits silencers while hunting larger game like deer and elk, but the prohibition on vermin control is a bit over the top.

And acquainting beginners with suppressors it is important to be sure and include a block of instruction about “Just because this weapon doesn’t make much noise it’s still a firearm”. I like to use the old standby of shooting a suppressed weapon loaded with hollow points into a jug of water it make the point stick home.

It’s exceedingly rare for ordinary criminals, gang members, and so forth to bother with anything more than the most basic types of firearms, and I can’t recall a single incident where a violent crime was committed with a silencer.