Updated:2024-12-11 02:19    Views:153

The gunman who killed the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday morning appeared to have used a silencertj777, a tightly regulated firearm accessory that has long been associated with Hollywood hit men but is rarely seen in real-life murders.

Also called suppressors, silencers are cylinders screwed into the muzzle of a gun that dampen noise by redirecting the gases released when a round is fired. Though legal in 42 states, they have been subject to federal restrictions since the days of Prohibition-era gang violence. Purchasing one requires submitting fingerprints and a photograph, undergoing a background check and paying a $200 transfer tax.

Despite those hurdles, silencers have skyrocketed in popularity — nearly five million are registered in the United States, up from 285,000 in 2011. The boom in sales is largely the result of a marketing effort by the firearms industry to rebrand silencers as health care devices that prevent hearing damage from gunfire. The industry has also successfully pressured federal regulators to speed up application processing times.

The firearms industry wants to go much further: It is supporting lawsuits to overturn remaining state bans on silencers and pushing federal legislation to remove them from the National Firearms Act, the 1934 law that made them harder to purchase. Those goals have been energized by Republican victories in the November election and a Supreme Court that is more gun friendly than in the past.

Silencers can reduce the sound of a gunshot below 140 decibels, the limit for what is considered safe, though similar protection can be achieved by using ear plugs and earmuffs, which are standard at shooting ranges. The growing popularity of the devices has increased concern that they could render a mass shooting harder to detect. Silencers also reduce muzzle flash and recoil, making it easier for a gunman with a semiautomatic weapon to keep aiming and shooting.

Silencers are not often linked to crimes, although instances of their use have been gradually increasing, according to federal trace data. Gun rights groups claim that the criminal use of silencers is not a problem, while gun safety advocates say stricter regulation of the devices has worked.

“In all of my years of law enforcement, I have never seen a silencer before,” Mayor Eric Adams said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday. “And so that was really something that was shocking to us all.”

In May, a Pennsylvania man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for selling “hit kits” comprising untraceable ghost guns, silencers and subsonic ammunition, which is quieter than regular rounds.

When Payton Gendron was planning his mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket two years ago, he sought a silencer for his AR-15-style rifle. However, as he explained in his manifesto, he could not readily obtain one — they are banned in New York. “Unfortunatelytj777,” he wrote, “suppressors are hard to get in the U.S. legally, and I don’t have the machining equipment to make one.”

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• Silencer.

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