Why do ICE/fake cops need silencers? (Los Angeles)

Silencers aren't actually silent, they're still quite loud, it's nothing like in shows and movies
In real world usage, they're really only useful for reducing the decibels a bit for hearing protection reasons
Suppressor is a more apt term for them
- Of all the disgusting shit ICE/the Gestapo is doing, honestly using a suppressor is of least concern to me
  
  Personally, I think suppressor should be the least of illegal things about firearms.
  The majority of the people I know with one have it so they don't bother their neighbors as much and they have a little extra buffer zone for their earpro.
  I'd much rather it sound like my neighbor is using a large sledgehammer all day than gunshots.
  The masks, lack of clear identification (not "I'm a cop" but actual identifying information), and what looks like 270 rounds of ammo waiting to go for a supposed ~~kidnapping~~ deportation are of FAR greater concern.
- they're really only useful for reducing the decibels a bit for hearing protection reasons
  Given that a couple decibel is a big range that can mean the difference between permanent damage and no damage at all, I'd call that pretty damn useful!
  But yeah, you're otherwise absolutely right, of course 😁
- If you must shoot where there are non target animals with ears then you should protect their ears by using a suppresser. Non target includes the person holding the gun.
- Subsonic ammunition is definitely quiet
  
  I don't think I've ever met a single person using subsonic 556. Subsonic 22LR? Every day. But not 556. 223? Only when hunting deer. Not for social work.
  
  Most rifle rounds depend on speed for their energy.
  A subsonic 5.56 is only going to have 15-20% the muzzle energy of a standard round at best.
  
  The ammunition is, but the mechanical parts of the gun are still fairly loud.
  You can get the sound down to maybe 100 dBA. That's much quieter than the 160ish that you get without a suppressor. But, that's still loud. Things that are around 100 dBA include blenders, electric drills, motorcycles, etc. It's only a very brief sound, but it's loud for that moment. The Guinness record for loudest finger snap is 108 dBA. So, the quietest gun will be much louder than the average finger snap.
  That means those movie scenes where people are having a shootout with silencers in a library and nobody notices, or even in a crowded train station. That's not realistic. People might not recognize the sound as a gun, but they'd definitely be looking around for the source of that snapping sound. It also means the scenes where someone is sneaking through a house at night killing people without being noticed are not realistic either. If you're asleep, a loud finger snap might not wake you up, but if you're awake you're definitely going to notice it.
- They're also used to reduce muzzle flash somewhat.
- It's the patent term, not a descriptive term. It is a perfectly viable term as it is the one used for more than 100 years.
- I’ve shot a gun with a silencer. It’s extremely quiet.
  
  It depends on what you shoot, also. A subsonic 22lr will sound like an airgun. A 55gr 5.56 (common to AR-15s) will still be loud as shit from the sonic boom.
  
  Compared to...?
  It's extremely quiet compared to shooting a gun without a silencer. Sure,, but guns are incredibly loud.
  
  Agree. A 9mm with a nice suppressor? All I can hear is the “action” of the gun: Click. Click. Click.
- This hits different after just having watched several videos of people raving about the subharmonic excellence of Geoff Castelluci 😄
  He absolutely murders with his subharmonic sonic ammo, is what I'm getting at 😉
- the decibels a bit for hearing protection reasons
  I mean, I've heard that from groups trying to pass laws to get rid of the tax stamp, but in all honesty everyone I've known who has a suppressor only has one because they think they are cool.
  I mean you still have to wear hearing protection with them, especially if you're at a range where the vast majority of people aren't using a suppressor.
  
  Right now, the market for them is distorted by the tax stamp. Only a few people bother with the paperwork and fee (even though it's been highly streamlined in recent years). That means companies producing them have to make up their costs with high prices rather than volume. It's almost a stealth tax on top of the stated tax.
  That results in only a few well off people getting them. This has little overlap with skill or appreciation for the hobby.
  Drop them from the NFA, and now everyone with a 3D printer can just run one off. Even in traditional manufacturing, you have a much larger customer base, and the company can sell on volume rather than high prices.
- Did anyone here say they were silent?
  
  The title of the post quite literally uses the term "silencer".
  
  The reason we jump to that is because it's common misconception, and that misconception directly leads people to support bans on suppressors.

These do not work the way they do in the movies. If he fired that rifle it would still be quite loud even with the suppressor on. But the difference it makes is that if he fires it indoors it won't blast out the ear drums of everyone in the room.
I'd say the more important thing to point out with this picture is that the reason why they're kitted out like this is that they want to discourage people confronting them as they're committing another atrocity in plain sight. They know that people will not stand powerless much longer as someone is being kidnapped before their eyes.
- This is also why silencer bans are fucking stupid, all it does is changes it from "goodbye ear drum" to "well that was loud", I am generalizing somewhat but my point still stands. Unless we are talking about some obscure shit like the Welrod which is ridiculously silent because like most of the damned gun is silencer, it's more silencer than gun.
  
  I always like to say it takes a gun from "definitely causing hearing damage" to "probably not causing hearing damage... Right away"
- Great point. Silencers/suppressors are for the comfort of the person shooting the gun. Those are part of group combat in urban warfare. So they aren't impacting themselves or their brown shirt friends with muzzle blast while shooting people inside houses or other buildings.
- Honestly the suppressor is the least egregious part of the whole setup.
- Thank you, I'm glad to see someone else making this point. Like you said, there's plenty about this that's seriously fucked up already, the suppressor is not the problem.
  But most people only know about this stuff from Hollywood (not their fault, if anything I'm grateful that the average Lemmy user has little personal knowledge of firearms, the world would be better if everyone could be so ignorant), and thinks that suppressors / "silencers" are some kind of devious tool only used by people looking to do surrupticious murders, because that's how they're always portrayed.

Remember, slugs can go through body armor. If any of these mfs are not identifying as police, have no badge or warrant, and are armed to the teeth....they could be any joe off the street.
Defend yourself and your home.
- A 12 ga. slug probably won't, but these typically also weigh a full ounce and will be packing 2,300-3,000 FPE or so. Even if it doesn't penetrate, the presumptive target is likely to wind up flat on his ass and not in a position to get up in a hurry. Imagine getting hit by a dump truck that's about 3/4" in diameter.
  Modern body soft body armor can usually be counted on to be designed around stopping pistol and maybe intermediate cartridges up to 5.56 or 7.62x39, so whatever big game chambering you have in your Fudd rifle is likely not to be too impressed by it. Just to throw some perspective out there.
  It's possible some of these dweebs could be strutting around in level III or IV plates but this doesn't seem like a strong possibility. The chump in the picture certainly isn't.
  I think these morons are putting on a big old show to make themselves look tough but they are absolutely not acting like they really expect any resistance.
  
  Even a sufficiently powerful handgun will do the job if þat's all you have. A .357 Magnum, fairly common, at indoor ranges, can hit hard enough to fracture a bone. A .44 almost certainly will. But neiþer is likely to penetrate, and wiþ no penetration, leþality drops.
  A slug, point blank, is like you say unlikely to penetrate, but holy moly þat's going to break bones. Þat's long-term medical leave.
  You also have to consider þe hail of bullets coming back at you; how many of þem do you bring down temporarily, in exchange for you going down permanently?
  
  Nice! At least it has enough stopping power to bring them down. Really anyone who is dressed in reg clothes and doesn't ID or have proof of cause for being there? They deserve all they get. Fuck these guys
  
  Likely won't go through but it will break their ribs. Also... don't target center mass if they have a vest. If you can shoot.
- This is the best suggestion. Any armed thug that tries to hide their identity is up to something. Kidnappings, mostly.
- All bullets go through body armour when you aim at the face
  
  Hitting a face-sized target at any appreciable distance takes some practice when calmly shooting at a range in ideal conditions. It's not anything you want to count on in a stressful situation.
  
  Imagine the cleanup. Ugh
- As do knives.
  
  You know what they say about people that pull knives? They get shot.

The far better question is why they need assault rifles?
A suppressor is actually a good thing to put on any weapon. That's why they're becoming standard in the military. Guns are unbelievably loud, to the point that they can cause serious and permanent hearing damage to people around you when you fire them. If you're accepting the premise that an armed police force is a good thing (I disagree, but that's a separate discussion) it at least makes sense to minimize collateral damage. The sound of gunfire is especially dangerous indoors; if an officer was forced to fire their weapon in an environment like they could actually seriously injure innocent bystanders just from the noise alone.
On the other hand, collateral damage is exactly why a 5.56mm carbine makes no sense as a police weapon. Those rounds will go straight through a human body, straight through a brick wall, and still be lethal. You could end up killing someone you can't even see. It used to be that when law enforcement wanted extra firepower, they used submachine guns and shotguns, weapons with very little potential for overpenetration. But then police forces all started freaking out about the idea that every criminal was going to be wearing level 3 body armour and demanding to use the same guns soldiers use (not helped by the fact that cops in the US are allowed to buy surplus military equipment at knockdown prices).
This doesn't come from an operational need, it comes from the fact that every cop wants to cosplay at being military, but without all the hardships that actually come with that. That's why you see federal agents and SWAT all running around in multicam and other military camo patterns, despite the fact that those patterns really don't do much of anything in an urban environment. It's all just dress up to make their peepees feel bigger.
- Well said. If you've ever been next to someone at an indoor range firing large caliber rounds without a suppressor, it's very unpleasant to be near them if you're plinking 9mm or 22lr.
  I support taking supressors off the NFA (and also abolishing the NFA altogether, but that's another argument). Calling them silencers is incorrect. They're safety devices. Some states don't even classify them as firearms. Any supersonic round is still loud enough to require ear protection.
  
  YES. That is the most annoying shit ever. I'm just tryna have a good time practicing good technique with a handgun and I have to sit and listen to some moron spray hundreds of dollars worth of ammo away so they can feel like they're the coolest dude at the range. Then they leave and we all look around at each other like "thank fuck that asshole is finally gone eye roll emoji"
- Those rounds will go straight through a human body, straight through a brick wall, and still be lethal.
  This is incorrect. The 5.56 / .223 cartridge is not like in the movies. The nose of the bullet deforms on impact by design.
  There are precious few cartridges that will "go through a brick wall". There are even fewer that would be lethal on the other side of that wall.
  My thought is that these rifles have no business being leveraged for this application.
  
  There are different kinds of 5.56mm ammo, they don't all have the same construction or behave the same way. We don't know what ICE are loading.
  Even M855 green tip (which is what it sounds like you're describing, or at least some similar variety of FMJ soft core round) can pierce lighter body armour and still be lethal. That means against an unarmoured target it's going to have very little problem going in and out of a human body.
  While I'll grant that most softer varieties of 5.56 will be stopped by brick (again, we don't know exactly what ICE are loading, but fairs fair, it was somewhat of an overstatement on my part), they will certainly have no difficulty going through drywall, wood, and other visual obstructions that could be concealing an innocent bystander. While it's certainly true that something like a 9mm can also penetrate many of these obstructions, it will not retain nearly as much lethality when doing so, and it simply makes no sense to increase your risk of injuring a bystander every time you fire for basically no gain. If you fire an AR-15 inside a building (which, y'know, is where a bunch of people doing no-knock raids expect to be spending a lot of their time) you have a very high chance of killing an innocent bystander you couldn't even see.
  For more on this I consulted my wife who confirmed that she's been shown videos in training of 5.56 going through multiple layers of dry-wall and still retaining lethal velocity. You can see this in this video here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3BlRPtCj2E) but know that this is also what professionals are taught about their weapons when considering targets, over-penetration and cover.
- well I mean... armed? yes! to the damn teeth like these dudes with tankettes and shit? damn no

How do we know some abductions aren't be carried out by white nationalists murdering the people they toss into vans?
- I mean...isn't that what happens even if they actually are on the government payroll?
- One could, hypothetically, turn this around and use it to abduct MAGAts, no?
  
  the left never sees an opportunity, unless it's an opportunity to whine to the choir.
- So the police?
  
  People are more scared of the boogeyman than the people literally kidnapping folks off the street and sending them to concentration camps merely because they belong to a 3 letter agency with authority.
  
  The police normally have uniforms uncovered faces and come with warrants and badges which can be inspected verified and furthermore verified with dispatch if you call 911.
  You could pretend to be an officer and people do but it would be easy to verify both at the time and after the fact making it a rarity because its hard to pull off.
  Right now you could gather 3 bros and a van and snatch someone and it would probably take months to find out that they were murdered rather than in some holding facility or prison in El Salvador
- We don't.

Why do they need AR's in an urban domestic environment? It's part cosplay, part intimidation factor. At least that thug is practicing proper trigger discipline.
- The AR-15 is a .22 caliber rifle designed by John Browning to sell in large quantities to governments. It's the rifle so simple that even the average US Marine can operate it. It's got all the stopping power you need for your next trip to the nearest middle school.
  
  I think you mean .223 or more commonly known, 5.56

why do we all need to continue this giant circle jerk? is there a single person here who doesn't understand that republicans are evil, that cops are fascists, that capitalism is killing us, that our president is a fucking moron, that corporations are run by sociopaths, and that religion is the scaffolding that holds it all together?
i mean seriously. i'm confused. do you guys just enjoy joking about it all? do you need the dopamine high of dunking to the choir? why don't we talk about solutions instead of rehashing the same old bullshit day after day?
- do you guys just enjoy joking about it all?
  Yes.
  Morale matters.
  Humor is a weapon.
  Preaching to the choir is an important part of a pastor's job - because who wants to hear the Word more than true believers do?
  Online circlejerks are powerful community building tools - they reaffirm true believers' loyalty, strengthen the commitment of moderates, and expose visiting lurkers to the movement's perspective and the passion of its members.
  Let's not forget how racist circlejerks on FB and Reddit and the chans memed Trump into office in 2016.
  Jerking about problems can't be all a movement does, of course - but an online movement that doesn't share memes, and in-jokes, and news that supports it, and similar kinds of community building, is dead on the ground.
  
  It helps morale, and makes stress easier to deal with, and can build solidarity. Several years ago, in a situation where me and 131 other people were waiting for our imminent deaths, and were powerless to do anything about it, some people were freaking out, some sat in silence, and others of us joked and laughed about the situation. I actually asked one of my friends if he'd like to retake an exam, so he could maybe pass it, and sue with a better grade. He really bombed an exam badly, the day before, and there obviously wouldn't be time for other remediation. He he told me to fuck off, we both laughed, did a "cheers" with our half empty coffees, and finished them off.
  I was one of the laughers/jokers, but when the situation changed, giving us hope of survival, the laughing and joking went silent. Hope brought the stress for the rest of us. Obviously, we survived (I'm thumbing this missive out on my phone). I've been married over 20 years, have a couple kids.
  
  maybe i never saw the internet as a social environment. just a space for organization.
- To feel like you are a part of the solution without any real effort... oh and internet points.
  
  then maybe more of us need to be pointing that out
- God damn if you didn't sum up lemmy in two fucking paragraphs.
  All those issues are real, and I have no idea what the best solution is.
  Being on here WILL get you depressed... But knowing this info is also important... I don't know man...
  
  the solution is simple. people are just cowards.

So they can go in blasting and not hurt their ears. Mwap.
- If you go blasting civilians you don't want to get tinnitus
- Everything about this fucker is a compensator for something!
  
  I thought all the BeaeCats, tanks, and other military weapons was their compensators? 😉

Why do they need masks.
- because I suspect a large chunk of them are proud boys
  
  If they're so proud why are they wearing masks?!
- gang members
- So they can get away with whatever assault they want without getting doxed. Can't let their friends and family know they're one of the bad apples.

That’s a suppressor. There’s no such thing as a silencer. Suppressors are important for anyone who uses a gun and can afford them, because they help protect your ears from permanent damage.
- Jeez, guy. Everyone knows what they meant.
  
  Gun nuts don't have any chill. "IT'S A MAGAZINE! NOT A CLIP!" is a common one I see. lol I say this as a gun owner myself.
- Huh, I thought silencer was a brand name like Kleenex or aspirin.
  
  I'm pretty sure it was in the distant past but I'm not going to do the legwork right now to check.
  
  You would be incorrect. "Silencers" is not a brand name, SilencerCo is. Just like Kleens is not a brand name, Kleenex is. But cute try, at least.
- William Godfray de Lisle would like a word.
- You seem to be under the ignorant impression that you have to fire a certain number of shots before ear damage occurs. Ear damage occurs with sounds above 85 dB. An unsuppressed AR-15 is 165-175 dB. Even a single shot can result in permanent ear damage and tinnitus. If you are close enough, it can deafen you. A suppressor can reduce that to around 130 dB. Still enough to damage your ears, but perhaps enough to save you from hearing loss.
  Also, I didn't say I was worried about their ears. That's another thing you're mistaken about. More than just nazis have guns. Many leftists do as well. I myself have a AR-15 chambered in .300 Blackout, as well as an AR-15 in 5.56, among other weapons.
  
  Shooting unprotected is very damaging to your ears and very painful even if it's just one or two shots
  
  A single gunshot in an indoor space can cause permanent hearing damage, not just to the shooter, but to everyone around them. Especially infants and young children.
  Fuck ICE, but the suppressor is not the problem here. It's literally the only part of that image that isn't a problem.
- Or you know, ear plugs.
  
  So, in a scenario where a law enforcement officer actually has a good reason to fire a weapon indoors, should they ask the suspect to wait for ten minutes while they hand out earplugs to every innocent bystander present? Don't forget to bring extra small earplugs for any infants with their highly sensitive eardrums.
  I'm not suggesting that a group of jackbooted thugs like ICE ever manages to find themselves in a scenario where use is force is actually legitimate, but if that's your issue then your comlaint is with the existence of ICE, not with the use of suppressors.
  
  Hey all, this guy thinks gun people don't know about ear plugs.

He doesn't need a long gun either. Or all the extra gear. He needs a bag of zip ties and a freaking badge. That's about it.
- he needs a [tool to end french monarchy]
  
  Yeah, but we're a ruzzian asset country now, so it'd be more fitting if they were all shoved put windows.
- Yeah but then he wouldn't look cool and intimidating and his mommy might think less of him
- A decidedly non-anarchist take 🤣
  He needs a new job.

Call 911
- “There’s an armed man impersonating a police officer”

They're terrorists.

ICE are just random racists they plucked off the street last week and gave a cardboard badge they don't have to carry. It wouldn't surprise me if the hiring stipulation was BYOG.
- they're not random racists. They're specific racists, that trump pardoned from federal prison like two months ago and then deputized

Eh, that's the least of the problems with ICE. Silencers should be generally available without jumping through hoops.

If I'm getting shot at by ICE, I'd rather not get permanent hearing loss at the same time personally.
- Just FYI: If you're dead you will also permanently lose your ability to hear.
  
  I mean, thank fuck
  
  Big if true
  
  Source? /s
  
  Yeah but ur eardrums tho

Every rifle used by law enforcement ought to have a silencer. If they're gonna murder someone the absolute rock bottom very least they can do is not cause severe permanent hearing damage to a hundred other people in the vicinity.
It's not like it's a stealth thing. It's not going to do anything to prevent detection and they don't give a shit about that anyway. This isn't a James Bond or John Wick movie so let's not pretend silenced gunshots aren't still unbelievably loud.
A better question is how can other cops bring a rifle into a densely populated area WITHOUT a silencer?
- Single shots from rifles do not cause permanent hearing loss.
  A better question is how can other cops bring a rifle into a densely populated area WITHOUT a silencer?
  I dont even know how to respond to this part. Maybe don't have the cops come in with the expectations to use the weapon?
  
  Not commenting on the other parts of this discussion but a single shot from a rifle absolutely CAN cause permanent hearing damage. Even some weapons suppressed are still loud enough to damage your hearing over a short amount of time/multiple shoots. Have you ever seen or watched news of cops shooting someone and NOT firing multiple rounds?
  Of all the tactical battle rattle these ICE dorks are wearing to capture people, I think suppressors are the least worrisome; should maybe even be mandatory for law enforcement in urban environments. That's coming from my experience shooting in the Marines and being a hobby shooter since then.
  
  I would prefer the cops not have any guns at all. They would certainly be more polite. If they are going to go do something that would need a gun they need a warrant and then 5 pages of requisition forms filled out in triplicate to request the guns.
  
  It's not like they've been trained in any de-escalation techniques, if they've been trained at all.
- serious question about guns and silencers, but if it was just a tiny gun, would it not be pretty quiet and work as expected like if someone was in a bathroom and the people in the bar wouldn't hear it?
  The bigger the gun the more noise it'd make though for sure.
  
  A suppressor on a subsonic .22 caliber gun is about as close to movie/video game quiet as you can expect. There is still variation, but subsonic ammo eliminates the "crack" from the sonic boom (comes from the bullet itself), and the suppressor reduces the muzzle noise a lot. In person I've heard one suppressed subsonic .22, and it was about the level of a good clap. 👏
  
  A good answer to your question needs more specifics, but in general, suppressed handguns with home-defense or target ammo are still loud enough to gain attention.
  On the other hand, subsonic ammo will be pretty quiet and reduce the noise drastically, but unless you have the semi-auto mechanics tuned properly, the gun won't cycle the next round in very well. I can't speak to the stopping power of subsonic ammo but again, it probably requires specifics to give an accurate answer.
- Is this how the Average American thinks

It's not that they need silencers, but that ICE needs to hire from the pool of people obsessed with guns to be able to continue acting as the US gestapo it is.

Gang members.
- Worse than gang members.
  They are evil losers.
  
  And terrorists

The reason for having suppressors is to make it less loud when you shoot your weapon at an immigrant or protestor

- How did Watchmen so accurately predict this timeline?
  
  History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Why do they need/get to hide their faces, and carry no identification?

Because They played a lot of counter strike

These are people who think they're playing CounterStrike for a living. Of course they're going to look the part.

Anyone else think these chodes look like the antithesis of cool?
- They're Rittenhouses. Dangerous losers.

Because these are just random dudes who bring their own personal weapons from home. It's like a fashion show for them.

It's for murdering journalists.

Nice Jackie O sunglasses ya got there, Skippy.
- "I wanna wear a pair of dark sunglasses.."
  
  O yeah!

It helps with their suppression.

Murder.

Tan webbing on black slacks... what a sack.
- They can't do khaki slacks after the Unite the Right rally because it makes them look racist. But they also can't change out their whole wardrobe without spending a lot of money. So compromises were made.
  
  Lol as if these fucks ever cared about looking racist 🤣
  
  I would say their carrying out of fascist orders screams "racist" quite loudly, I don't think the khakis would change that much

idk probably because he fucked your mom in Call of Duty last night?

What a super scary era of an already scary place…

If they want to be domestic terrorists wouldn't a loudener be a better option?

It’s a suppressor. Fits with his whole mall ninja vibe. Suppress the people. Suppress the noise my people suppressor makes. Suppress the press coverage.

They probably dont but they wanna look cool and play dress up

Shooting indoors

Maybe they think it looks better that way
- ...perhaps we'll be fortunate to see them perform as poorly as stanced cars when the revolution comes...

Poor underfunded bro doesn't even have night-vision goggles!!

To quietly murder people, obviously

They aren't real police.
- I would argue they're the most cop cops.

So the police have no problem with.. all of this?

It helps when shooting from inside of vehicles… fuck ICE

Because tactically they look cool. And it was cheap at the gun show.
Also I think that's a flash suppressor rather than a silencer. Which tactically would make more sense.

- Not how silencers work.
  ”if they need to go lethal” lol
  Race hating baby account is barely literate and confidently incorrect about even guns. Classic.