"we should not pass any laws to restrict or impede or discourage the use of firearms"

THE SILENCER ON FIREARMS

Hudson Maxim Insists That It Is No
Aid to the Concealment of Crime.

To the Editor of The Tribune.

   Sir: I was present at the demonstration of the Maxim silencer at Police Headquarters made by Hiram Percy Maxim, the inventor of the silencer.

   The inventor proved conclusively that a silencer cannot be used on a concealed weapon. If attached to a revolver it does not lessen the noise, because the escaping gases around the cylinder make the same report as though the silencer were absent.

   I stood with some of the police officers in an adjoining room when a rifle both with and without the silencer was fired. In both cases the sound was distinctively that of a rifle. The sound of the discharge of the gun when the silencer was used was much less than when the silencer was not used, but the distinctive sound of the gun was unchanged. This is due to the fact that the silencer doe? not and can not silence or change in the least the character of sound of the bullet passing through the air, and it is this sound of the bullet passing through the air that enables us to tell that a gun has been fired from a distance. Nothing else can produce the sound of the flight of a projectile.

   A katydid does not make a loud sound; a Cricket in the grass does not make a loud sound; a tree toad does not make a loud sound, but we instantly in each case tell whether or not the sound is made by a katydid, a cricket or a tree toad. Similarly. we are able to distinguish the sound of a gun, not at all because the sound is loud, but entirely because the sound is peculiar to the gun.

   A silencer can be applied to no weapon without especial trouble being taken to have the end of the gun screw threaded to take the silencer, and. due to its size, it adds materially to the length and conspicuousness of the gun.

   The silencer is absolutely no menace whatever to society. Any one who would take the trouble and use the necessary forethought to equip himself with a gun provided with a silencer in order to commit murder would, if he could not procure a silencer, commit the murder in some other way.

   There are always at hand in every home plenty of weapons with which either murder or suicide may be committed. A carving knife, a hatchet, an axe, a hammer, a pair of scissors and even a lady's hatpin are as efficient as a rifle, and they are perfectly silent.

   There is no reason whatever for legislation to prevent the use of any instrument simply because it can be conveniently used for the commission of crime, unless it is of peculiar advantage to the crook, in that it will help him to conceal his crime.

   The demonstration of the silencer absolutely proves that the silencer does not and can not help a criminal to conceal his crime.

   A silencer has peculiar and important uses, not only for the sportsman hunting game in the woods, but also for the marksman in target practice.
 
   I was told recently by one of the leading officers of the United States Army that the silencer is very important and useful in preventing gun shyness, for it not only silences the weapon but takes the kick out of the gun so that the new recruit can hold his gun steadily on the target and thus get used to his gun and become a good marksman much more quickly with it than he could without it.

   Throughout the country many young men are now using the Maxim silencer in private shooting galleries.

   If we are to depend on our citizen soldiery, as those who are preaching against national defenses advise us to do, we should not pass any laws to restrict or impede or discourage the use of firearms by the young men of the country. HUDSON MAXIM. Brooklyn. Feb. 10, 1915.

[New-York Tribune, Sunday, February 14, 1915. Vol. LXXIV....No. 24,927. Pg. 10]

   I do believe that our treasonous government totally ignored Mr. Maxim. Perhaps it is time for We The People to totally ignore the usurping traitors as well. For we are not morally or legally bound to obey unconstitutional dictates. And in fact are duty bound to resist them until they are overturned. Otherwise, the only other alternative is Revolution, as our forebears had to do. But above all, we must never allow ourselves to be silenced by treasonous hired servants...

   Oh, and a much belated tip of the hat to Mr. Maxim.