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Decision To Allow Silencers When Hunting Draws Legal Challenge
December 9, 2014
Pointing to safety concerns, three Central Florida residents have filed a legal challenge against a state decision allowing hunters to use silencers when shooting at deer, gray squirrels, rabbits, wild turkeys, quail and crows.
Seminole County residents Charles W. O’Neal, Peri Sedigh and Timothy Orrange Jr. filed the challenge last week in the state Division of Administrative Hearings against the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Last month, the commission approved removing a prohibition on the use of noise suppressors, or silencers, with rifles and pistols.
Supporters argue the move would have benefits such as protecting hunters’ hearing and helping while introducing people to the sport. But the Seminole County residents, in an eight-page challenge, said they own property abutting woodlands, hike or paddleboard and are concerned about safety if they are unable to hear shots. The challenge also pointed to statistics about gunshot wounds in Florida.
“Clearly, the ban removal will only add to these figures as the once-thundering crack of a firearm, sending warning to hikers, nature lovers and wildlife alike that hunters are nearby, will be reduced, muffled or altogether silenced,” the document said. “Even if the sound of the report from a hunting rifle or pistol is reduced by … (30) decibels or less, silencers create a zone in which a person in the woods or in their backyards can be within range of a bullet without knowing that hunters are nearby.”
Comments
6 Responses to “Decision To Allow Silencers When Hunting Draws Legal Challenge”
Thanks David for putting it in such a clear light. It is obvious that if stupidity was painful, some of these posters would be in a coma.
REGARDING:
“You can hunt from the side of the road, from your vehicle, you can use FMJ rounds from an AK-47 with a banana clip if you want. I guess we should do that here too. How many cows are folks getting for their daughters in Africa right now?”
If the only way to show something is a bad idea is to bring up something else which actually and inarguably a bad idea, then the actual idea must not be as bad as it first seems.
It is obviously a bad idea to trade perfectly good cows for a wife when a couple of sheep would be aplenty.
David for better trades
In a lot of countries you don’t have to worry about getting a hunting license because there is no law enforcement. You can hunt from the side of the road, from your vehicle, you can use FMJ rounds from an AK-47 with a banana clip if you want. I guess we should do that here too. How many cows are folks getting for their daughters in Africa right now? We could do that too. If someone else does it and I want to do it, it must be OK right?
I don’t think so.
Unless hunters are going to use subsonic rounds, you can’t silence a firearm. The only thing being silenced is the muzzle flash. The round still makes a loud crack as it breaks the sound barrier. If you’re close enough to be struck by a silenced round, you’re close enough to be hit by any round silenced or not. Anyone with any common sense should know by now that if you’re anywhere near nature during hunting season, you’re around hunters. If you’re stuck by a stray shot, you won’t hear it till after you’ve hit the ground anyway. Anyone who believes that a silenced weapon makes a little thud sound has watched way too much TV and shouldn’t be in the woods anyway.
These people challenging this new rule have no idea what they are talking about and are just plain ignorant of the use of “suppressors.” They are not silencers. They do not silence a firearms noise. They simply take the decibel level down to where it does not damage hearing etc… It also makes night hunting for hogs a much more neighbor friendly hunt. Did you know it’s legal to night hunt hogs on private property here in FL. If I was a neighbor or a piece of land where there are night hunts for hogs going on, I would gladly welcome the use of suppressors.
Also, did you know that in a lot of other countries, the use of suppressors is required when hunting in order to be more neighbor friendly etc… Only here in the great 2nd Amendment country of the United States has Hollywood turned the public’s view of suppressors into something evil. They should be un-regulated as they are in other countries. They would make hunting and shooting a much more enjoyable thing to do too.
peri is a president of the animal defense fund at barry university school of law..
no info on the other 2 exept tim owns an automotive repair buesness in simonole county.