Anything that makes your ears ring has damaged your hearing. I have LOUD tinitus, mostly from industrial noise and it sucks. +1 that it can lead your wife to think you aren't listening to her. I hear a lot of stuff that makes no sense because I didn't hear what was really said.
I think this thread also brings into consideration something else for the shooter's hearing safety and the general peace of the public: legal suppressors. Suppressors are much easier to obtain in the states that allow them, can make practice very safe and quiet to the neighbors, and are much smaller and more effective than they used to be. Some people still attach a James Bond-type mystique to them, but I think like open carry, they are becoming more and more acceptable.
In a self-defense situation that required a quick presentation, you obviously wouldn't use a suppressor, but given any prep time, some even have quarter-turn, quick-attach fittings that could be deployed in less than two seconds. Imagine how scared a BG would be to stare down a suppressed barrel and wonder why he was stupid enough to mug a CIA agent!
..I can hear a mouse running through the grass and want to keep that ability as long as I can.
Does anyone practice a few magazines of ammunition with no hearing protection before you don the ear muffs for the rest of the session? (Poll...because I like polls)
I have read on here and other sites, you will not hear the percussion of the shot, or get blinded by the muzzle flash. Having not had to fire my handgun in a room or in the dark, with the fight or flight onset, I wouldn't know first hand if this is true.
I have purposefully shot a few magazines during a session only a couple times to remind myself of how loud it really is. Should I plan on doing it more often? Or is it not worth the damage to my ears, and I will be able to handle the noise if the time ever curses me?
Its funny how everyone here posts something decent to say except for Tuts...I guess there's gotta be one a-hole in each thread...
I am a firefighter and a paramedic. I have trained in live fire scenarios, had IV's started on me by people who have never done them before, and have done other harmful training. It hurts getting stuck 6 times, fishing for the vein each time, but I go back year after year to help new paramedics train because they save lives, and its worth training. That was just part of the process. Police get tazered and pepper sprayed during their academy (at least in Clackamas county they did). Fighters practice taking punches to toughen up. Muy Thai spend days kicking tree trunks to harden their shins. Tuts, have you every had to fire your firearm in a fight or flight exchange? Did you feel the auditory exclusion? I have heard of it, I wanted to know more about it. If its worth training for or not. I have fired less rounds then an average soldier would hear in 1 second during a gun fight.
How about you stop acting like your child and answer the questions like everyone else in this thread?
...I'm sorry, could you repeat that a bit louder, maybe a lot louder?
Good grief, man, are you serious? To quote my kid's texting: "OMG".
I fired a .38 (S&W .357 seven shooter but had .38's in it) once without hearing protection out in a field. I did in once. That was enough for me to learn not to ever do that again, at least not just for shots-n-grins.
Insofar as being able to handle it if you ever needed to shoot without "ears", well, Mr. Adrenaline will likely not let feel anything or hear much of anything painful during the exchange. Then again, those who have been there and done that could elaborate.
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