New Bill Could Legalized Silencers on Hunting Guns - KGWN –Cheyenne, WY– Scottsbluff, NE News,Weather, Sports

New Bill Could Legalized Silencers on Hunting Guns

A hot topic lawmakers are discussing this session is gun safety. One of the bills talks about silencers on hunting guns.

The familiar sound of hunters gun shots across Wyoming could become a thing of the past.

"Safety's important, but also protecting our hearing is important too," said Bob Wharff.

Executive Director of the Wyoming Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, Bob Wharff, is lobbying for a bill that would allow the use of silencers on hunting guns in Wyoming. It was brought up to him by one of their members that the loss of one of your senses can be unsafe.

"If I got hearing protection on. I can't hear if someone comes up behind me, but he said if their kid comes home and doesn't know I'm out back shooting and they come running out in the back yard or the dog got out, he said I might not see the dog before it runs into my field of fire. So there is some applicability to it."

Wharff brought a group of about a dozen Legislators out to the Otto Road Shooting Range to show them that these silencers aren't as silent as some may think.

"It is designed to make it quiet where the shooter is, but you can hear it just like any other gun, so that's another assumption that people are wrong on. It isn't quiet by any means," Wharff said.

More than two dozens states already allow the use of silencers. The lawmakers in attendance arrived as skeptics, but after getting to see the silencers being used it influenced their thinking.

"I think I'm more in supporting, because I thought it would be really silent. I just didn't think you'd hear much. It suppresses it and there's still quite a bit of noise with it. If you're up to 130 decibels, that's still a lot of noise," said Representative Allen Jaggi of Uinta County.

"You can clearly hear the bullets flying by. The physics of it don't change so when you've got a supersonic bullet traveling it still makes noise, it just takes some of the big boom out," said Representative Kendell Kroeker of Natrona County.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is remaining neutral on the issue, saying it sees arguments for and against allowing silencers for hunting.