Re: Ever fire a 12 gauge indoors, without hearing protection
Rossignol said:
When hunting we dont wear ear protection. When a bird flushes its a couple of adrenaline filled seconds and we fire! I havent even noticed the shot in those moments. No ringing in our ears, not even temporary.
Auditory exclusion.
I think this is the answer.
I fired a 12 gauge inside a convenience store while on a special (LE) detail and never noticed it. The clerk and another officer were standing nearby and they later commented that the sound wasn't as loud as they'd expected. I fired a 4-inch .357 magnum revolver one time in a narrow upstairs hallway, also. I remember it being more a loud "pop' than the painful "crack" I'd heard at the practice range...in fact, it flashed through my mind, at that micro-instant, that it was a dud round or something because it didn't seem to recoil as much as it did during training.
Of course, this is all when I was pumped up and was
behind the muzzle with the blast-noise going forward and away from me. The only time I can recall anyone sustaining debilitating damage instantly was a shooting that suddenly erupted between an officer and bad guy who were seated together in a vehicle. The officer involved fired his short-barreled magnum revolver across his own chest as he and the felon struggled in the closed-up car. He was later retired on a medical pension for hearing loss.
Longer barrels tend to quiet the crack. 18 and 20-inch barreled gauges are quieter than 14 and 16-inch barrels that are unfortunately now in vogue. I think, too, that carpeting, wall-board, the shelving and stacked-up display items in a store, acoustical tile in the ceiling above...all aid in diffusion of the blast. So it would depend a lot on the acoustics of the immediate vicinity. But mostly it's auditory exclusion. Though, like many of you, I have tinnitis and a hearing deficit, mostly women and children's voices are hard to hear well. I don't know...sometimes things happen in life that leave a mark on you somehow. Accidental or intentional, it's part of being a man, like childbirth leaving a woman with stretch marks. In the end, it was worth it.
For my part, I'd willingly run the risk of possible hearing damage to able to have the fight-stopping power of a shotgun or really powerful handgun. You gotta take the starch out of people ASAP in a homicidal assault at spitting distances. You're the defender, you didn't initiate it, and no one's getting out of it without losing something in the process. Better to lose your hearing than your pulse...but, as I said, I only know of one instance where the hearing loss was really bad.