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Supreme Court refuses to hear challenge to U.S. gun silencer law

You should believe the decibel ranges for a suppressed versus unsuppressed gunfire, its about 30 decibels at best.

30 decibel difference greatly affects detection range.
 
Not in a rural environment. Maybe in a city with a large amount of background noise.

In fact it is everywhere, including n rural environment too.
And by the way, the one, say ranger, is patrolling an area with a car, it is more difficult for him to detect a gunshot.
 
In fact it is everywhere, including n rural environment too.
And by the way, the one, say ranger, is patrolling an area with a car, it is more difficult for him to detect a gunshot.

Disagree.
 
30 decibel difference greatly affects detection range.

The loudness of the average rifle shot is around 140dB at 1m.

With the silencer that drops to 110dB at 1m.

This is roughly the same loudness as an unsilenced rifle at 30m (or not quite one football field).

Since I can be heard quite clearly (if I use my "outdoor voice") at 30m, I don't really consider that there is a great difference in "detection range".
 
The loudness of the average rifle shot is around 140dB at 1m.

With the silencer that drops to 110dB at 1m.

This is roughly the same loudness as an unsilenced rifle at 30m (or not quite one football field).


Since I can be heard quite clearly (if I use my "outdoor voice") at 30m, I don't really consider that there is a great difference in "detection range".

I am not an expert in acoustics, but for whatever my mechanical engineering knowledge worths, I do not see as equivalent to have 100 decibels @1 m to have 100 decibels @ 30 meters from another distant source. The two cases result in big differences in the propagation of the sound that will reach a person farther away than 30 meters.

The reason is because the decibels are linked to the energy of the sound as it spreads along the surface of the expanding sphere of air during propagation. As the sphere grows away from the source, its surface grows and the sound is spread across a wider surface which in turn reduces the decibels that reach a listener.

This means that if a source produces 100 decibel within the surface of a sphere with a radius of only 1 meter away from the source, there will be way more loss in decibels as the sphere's radius will double to 2 meters away from the source
On the other hand, the difference between the surface between spheres with radius of 31 and 32 meters or radius is quite smaller and this means that there will be less decibel losses in such case as the sphere from the distant source continues to grow

Similar considerations exist at longer distances:
 
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I am not an expert in acoustics, but for whatever my mechanical engineering knowledge worths, I do not see as equivalent to have 100 decibels @1 m to have 100 decibels @ 30 meters from another distant source. The two cases result in big differences in the propagation of the sound that will reach a person farther away than 30 meters.

First please let me apologize for not proof reading carefully enough.


This is roughly the same loudness as an unsilenced rifle at 30m (or not quite one football field).

should have read


This is roughly the same loudness as an unsilenced rifle at 30m (or not quite one THIRD OF A football field).

What the numbers I gave meant, and, obviously I didn't say this clearly enough, is that the sound that you would hear if a "silenced" rifle was fired and you were standing 1 metre away - is pretty much the same sound that you would hear if an "unsilenced" rifle and you were standing 30 metres away.

Omni has a "Distance Attenuation Calculator" and that is what I used to do the calculations. I'm not an expert in this field, so I tend to rely on people who are and if I have misused a tool that IS "used by experts" please feel free to correct my calculations.

The reason is because the decibels are linked to the energy of the sound as it spreads along the surface of the expanding sphere of air during propagation. As the sphere grows away from the source, its surface grows and the sound is spread across a wider surface which in turn reduces the decibels that reach a listener.

This means that if a source produces 100 decibel within the surface of a sphere with a radius of only 1 meter away from the source, there will be way more loss in decibels as the sphere's radius will double to 2 meters away from the source
On the other hand, the difference between the surface between spheres with radius of 31 and 32 meters or radius is quite smaller and this means that there will be less decibel losses in such case as the sphere from the distant source continues to grow

Similar considerations exist at longer distances:

Quite right, and I believe that the calculator at the link that I just provided takes all of that into account.
 
First please let me apologize for not proof reading carefully enough.


This is roughly the same loudness as an unsilenced rifle at 30m (or not quite one football field).

should have read


This is roughly the same loudness as an unsilenced rifle at 30m (or not quite one THIRD OF A football field).

What the numbers I gave meant, and, obviously I didn't say this clearly enough, is that the sound that you would hear if a "silenced" rifle was fired and you were standing 1 metre away - is pretty much the same sound that you would hear if an "unsilenced" rifle and you were standing 30 metres away.

Omni has a "Distance Attenuation Calculator" and that is what I used to do the calculations. I'm not an expert in this field, so I tend to rely on people who are and if I have misused a tool that IS "used by experts" please feel free to correct my calculations.



Quite right, and I believe that the calculator at the link that I just provided takes all of that into account.

I understood what you tried to say. You did not understand what I am saying....

I did not dispute the decibel levels at the specific location which is 1 meter from a silenced gun compared to decibel levels at the same location when it is @ 30 m away from an "unsilenced gun."

I tried to explain that even though the decibel levels are the same at this location, it does not mean that a person at a longer distance farther away will experience the same decibels from the unsilenced and silenced guns.

And in fact, I checked my claim with your calculator and it holds.

If you have in a specific location 100 db @ 1m from a silenced gun then @ 10 m from the silenced gun you have 80 db and a reduction of 20 db

If you have in the same location as before 100 db generated from an unsilenced gun @ 30 then @ 40 meters from the unsilenced gun (or 10 meters farther away from the location of the silenced gun) you have 97.5 DB and a reduction of only 2.5 db as the sound from the unsilenced gun propagates..

In other words, a guy at a distance 40 meters from an "unsilenced" gun will experience 97.5 DB while the decibel levels from a silenced gun which is just 10 meters away will be 80 db. And still @ 1 meter away from the silenced gun, the decibel levels from the unsilenced gun (@ 30 meters away) match the decibel level from the silenced gun.
 
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And if the above post seems convoluted, do the following


Pick as point 1 100 db @ 1 meter from the source and choose point two as 100 meters away from the source. The calculator gives a result of 60 DB and a difference of 40 db compared to point 1's db.


Now pick as point 1 100 db but @ 30 meters from the source and see how much longer distance it will take to reach a result of 60 db for point B. According to the calculators, B should be @ 3,000 meters for such reduction!



By the way, loudness measurements are tricky, and do not assume that DB mentioned in different measurements are always measuring the same thing. But I did not want to go to such details or to how different frequencies affect the human perception of loudness. I simply wanted to explain how a 30 db difference can actually have a big impact and I tried to explain to you how wave propagation is such that you cannot assume that if in a specific location you have equal decibels from sound sources @1 and @30 meters, that such equality somehow shows that both sources can be equally detected by a person at a farther distance.
 
I understood what you tried to say. You did not understand what I am saying....

I did not dispute the decibel levels at the specific location which is 1 meter from a silenced gun compared to decibel levels at the same location when it is @ 30 m away from an "unsilenced gun."

I tried to explain that even though the decibel levels are the same at this location, it does not mean that a person at a longer distance farther away will experience the same decibels from the unsilenced and silenced guns.

And in fact, I checked my claim with your calculator and it holds.

If you have in a specific location 100 db @ 1m from a silenced gun then @ 10 m from the silenced gun you have 80 db and a reduction of 20 db

If you have in the same location as before 100 db generated from an unsilenced gun @ 30 then @ 40 meters from the unsilenced gun (or 10 meters farther away from the location of the silenced gun) you have 97.5 DB and a reduction of only 2.5 db as the sound from the unsilenced gun propagates..

In other words, a guy at a distance 40 meters from an "unsilenced" gun will experience 97.5 DB while the decibel levels from a silenced gun which is just 10 meters away will be 80 db. And still @ 1 meter away from the silenced gun, the decibel levels from the unsilenced gun (@ 30 meters away) match the decibel level from the silenced gun.

I think that we are both saying the same thing and that is that "Silencers make gunshots less loud." - which is reasonably obvious to anyone who knows what the word "silencers" mean.

I also suspect that we are in agreement that the amount of sound reduction is NOT as great as those who hold to the "Silencers are really great for hunting because they reduce the sound so much that the gunshots don't scare the animals away." philosophy. (A philosophy, by the way, rather easily disproved [or, at least, greatly discounted]) by stepping on a branch when 50 yards away from a deer and watching the deer's reaction if you haven't immediately frozen in position BEFORE the deer turns to look for the source of the sound.)
 
I think that we are both saying the same thing and that is that "Silencers make gunshots less loud." - which is reasonably obvious to anyone who knows what the word "silencers" mean.

I also suspect that we are in agreement that the amount of sound reduction is NOT as great as those who hold to the "Silencers are really great for hunting because they reduce the sound so much that the gunshots don't scare the animals away." philosophy. (A philosophy, by the way, rather easily disproved [or, at least, greatly discounted]) by stepping on a branch when 50 yards away from a deer and watching the deer's reaction if you haven't immediately frozen in position BEFORE the deer turns to look for the source of the sound.)

Our disagreement was that I made the claim that "30 decibel difference greatly affects detection range," and you disputed it by arguing that "The loudness of the average rifle shot is around 140dB at 1m. With the silencer that drops to 110dB at 1m. This is roughly the same loudness as an unsilenced rifle at 30m"

My most recent posts were to show that even though the silenced gun at 1 meter is as loud as an unsilenced gun at 30 meters, this (true) fact does not lead to the conclusion that the silencer does not greatly affects the detection range.

Your calculator agreed with my original claim as I explained in my last post.

The key issue is that the loss of decibels is NOT constant per meter of distance away from the gun. There is way more loss at distances close to the gun during the first stages of the sound propagation. As a result, a sound wave just one meter away from the source will lose a lot more energy as it expands farther away compared to a sound wave of the same decibel level which has already expanded at 30 meters away from a gun. And this will result in a big difference in the perception of loudness for a distant listener.
 
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Our disagreement was that I made the claim that "30 decibel difference greatly affects detection range," and you disputed it by arguing that "The loudness of the average rifle shot is around 140dB at 1m. With the silencer that drops to 110dB at 1m. This is roughly the same loudness as an unsilenced rifle at 30m"

My most recent posts were to show that even though the silenced gun at 1 meter is as loud as an unsilenced gun at 30 meters, this (true) fact does not lead to the conclusion that the silencer does not greatly affects the detection range.

Your calculator agreed with my original claim as I explained in my last post.

The key issue is that the loss of decibels is NOT constant per meter of distance away from the gun. There is way more loss at distances close to the gun during the first stages of the sound propagation. As a result, a sound wave just one meter away from the source will lose a lot more energy as it expands farther away compared to a sound wave of the same decibel level which has already expanded at 30 meters away from a gun. And this will result in a big difference in the perception of loudness for a distant listener.

All "inverse square relationships" have a tendency to narrow the gap between graphed lines.

In the case of sounds, the further away from the sound source the listener is, the less detectable the difference in apparent loudness two sounds will have regardless of how great a difference they had at the point of origin.

As far as hunting is concerned, I have no data but I rather suspect that the sound attenuation is very greatly affected by the muffling effects of the actual terrain (possibly more than the effect of any silencer would provide).
 
All "inverse square relationships" have a tendency to narrow the gap between graphed lines.

In the case of sounds, the further away from the sound source the listener is, the less detectable the difference in apparent loudness two sounds will have regardless of how great a difference they had at the point of origin.

As far as hunting is concerned, I have no data but I rather suspect that the sound attenuation is very greatly affected by the muffling effects of the actual terrain (possibly more than the effect of any silencer would provide).

There are many things which will affect the detection. terrain for sure is one factor. Ambient noise is another one and I gave a realistic scenario of how such thing can greatly affect the detection. I explained that if ranger is patrolling an area with a car the sound of the gun as it arrives at the ranger's position must exceed the noise signal from the running engine at the speed of the car patrolling an area.

I am pretty sure that you can find in internet some info about the different effects of environment and ambient noise on detection of sounds from different source (gun, construction sites, airports, etc).
 
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There are many things which will affect the detection. terrain for sure is one factor. Ambient noise is another one and I gave a realistic scenario of how such thing can greatly affect the detection. I explained that if ranger is patrolling an area with a car the sound of the gun as it arrives at the ranger's position must exceed the noise signal from the running engine at the speed of the car patrolling an area.

Agreed, it's difficult to hear a pin drop in a boiler factory.

I am pretty sure that you can find in internet some info about the different effects of environment and ambient noise on detection of sounds from different source (gun, construction sites, airports, etc).

Again agreed, I'm simply too lazy to refine the conclusions to the 45th (or even the 1st) decimal place since, at some distance, the human ear would be unable to detect the difference in loudness between a shot from an unsilenced and a silenced gun and since there are conditions which would greatly shorten (or lengthen) that distance.
 
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