Gun safety in emergency situations

[cyberslider]

Hi All,

I have fired a gun outside of a range one time. I fired it with no ear or eye protection. The sound the gun made upon firing was, obviously, extremely loud.

Curious if anyone has fired a gun without ear protection?

In a stressful, self defense situation, would adrenaline cause a person to ignore the noise? If not, I'm not sure I could fire a gun more than once or twice without ear protection. That one time (mentioned above) pierced my ears. Firing it again may have knocked me out.

Any opinions/experiences?

Thanks,
David

 

[Traxxis]

I know going to the range with my shotgun and forgetting to put ears on, it hurts. However, when I'm dove hunting with no ears, I never hear the shot.

Lots of strange things happen when your body is put through a high stress situation.

 

[cyberslider]

That is interesting.

When I fired the gun, I was outside about 10 feet from the side of a metal building. It was a handgun - 9mm XD.

Maybe the excitement of the hunt is stressful enough to drown out the sound? Different type of gun maybe?

 

[druryj]

Only time I ever wore ear protection in the Marines was in training. Eh? What's that you said? Speak up!

 

[grwd]

exactly.
No one can focus on two things at the same time.
You wont pay attention to the noise.

That doesnt mean, however, that it wont affect you.

 

[criticalbass]

Speaking from the near deaf position, at least two things contribute to the differences in shooting off the range. One, and probably the most important, has already been mentioned. You are focused on the shot, not the sound. The other factor is that unless you are in a closed in space, particularly with long guns, the sound is not reflected back to you, so you get a bit less.

Handguns with supersonic rounds (most of them are supersonic) make a crack that actively hurts. The faster the bullet, the more it seems to hurt. The CZ 52 with its fast little .32 round is a real ear killer.

I had always wondered why the relatively soft boom of a shotgun was still considered damaging. Tinker AFB used to have a nice skeet range. I believe they bulldozed it about the time of Desert Storm. The range was across a street and down a bit from a fairly tall building with fluted sides, I think designed to deflect blast waves. The flutes reflected some of the sound of the shots back to the shooters, and seemed to reflect only the high frequency part of the sound. You heard a high pitched series of "tinks." Sounded a but like someone repeatedly hitting the high end of a xylophone. Obviously the damaging high frequency sound is there, just not normally audible. CB

 

[guns are dumb]

To what you guys are referring has a very sound basis in medical science. It's called a fight or flight response resultant from the activation of the sympathetic nervous system. When your body generates this type of physiological response, certain systems are given priority over others, hearing being one of those that is almost completely shutdown. While damage may still occur to the inner ear tissues, you are very unlikely to feel pain as a result due to the nervous tissue directing ones hearing being heavily if not completely encumbered.

 

[Norman]

You should read the books 'On Killing' and 'On Combat'. Lt Col. Grossman talks about what happens in shootings/combat. One of the nifty little thigs a body does is shut down the senses not necessary for survival, including auditory exclusion. Same thing with hunters about to shoot a big buck, the shot doesn't sound near as loud as it does on the range.

 

[WNM]

Definitely won't be a problem in the heat of the moment. Shooting 3" duck loads at a target is unpleasant, but when I shoot at some decoying ducks, I don't feel it.

 

[rlongnt]

Ummm.. Nothing a $6,000 pair of PAC aids from Clear-Tone won't fix. Thank you USMC.