Nicole Gaudiano

USA TODAY

FAIRFAX, Va. — The instructor popped off a few rounds with a .22 semiautomatic rifle, first with a silencer and then without, before asking his loaded question.

“By a show of hands, did anyone think that was silent?” Knox Williams, president and executive director of the American Suppressor Association, asked reporters gathered for his demonstration.

Silencers, so-called because they suppress the sound of firearms, are at the center of a heated debate as pro-gun lawmakers hope to advance legislation to make them easier to get.

Gun control advocates say one of a gun’s most important safety features is the loud blast, alerting people to run in the event of a crime. But the National Rifle Association wants people to hear their side of the story — so much so that they invited reporters to their indoor firing range in Fairfax, Va., recently and even armed them for a demonstration.

“My hope is, that’s the biggest takeaway — there’s still a loud noise,” Williams said.

Federal law refers to “silencers,” but don't call them that in front of pro-gun groups. They call that a misnomer and they blame Hollywood for perpetuating misconceptions. They prefer the term “suppressors,” arguing that the guns still sound like a jackhammer because the noise is reduced only by about 30 decibels.

The reporters’ demonstration — including suppressed and unsuppressed shooting with rifles, handguns and a shotgun — was similar to one the groups have been increasingly offering lawmakers as they ramp up pressure to pass the Hearing Protection Act. That bill that would remove silencers from the National Firearms Act, which has regulated silencers along with machine guns for more than 80 years since the days of gangland crime such as Chicago's 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Passage of the bill would mean silencer buyers would no longer have to pay a $200 tax, submit fingerprints and a photograph, notify law enforcement officers and wait about 10 months while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wades through a backlog to process the application and register the weapon. They would still have to pass an instant background check, as they would with any firearm.

“It’s important for people to see it firsthand so they can understand fact versus fiction,” said Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s lobbying arm. “A lot of people think that what you see in the movies is actually the reality as it relates to suppressors. They’re not silent.”

Read more:

What ever happened to President Trump's gun advisory group?

Trump to NRA: The 'assault' on gun rights is over

The bill has 141 co-sponsors, including three Democrats, and its sponsor, GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, expects to have it on the House floor for a vote in July.

Lawmakers fired silencer-equipped weapons at the annual Congressional Shoot-Out this month, and they’ll have another chance next month at the Capitol Police firing range, said Duncan, who is helping organize the event. Duncan said he’ll help any lawmaker get a chance to shoot with one.

“I just want to give members an opportunity to experience it for themselves and see that this suppressor is not a silencer,” he said.

Gun-control groups say the bill puts gun manufacturers’ profits over safety and would allow dangerous people to buy silencers, just by finding an unlicensed seller. They say crimes with suppressors are rare because the current law works, but the results are devastating when silencers are used. They say Christopher Dorner’s use of a suppressed firearm helped him avoid detection during a 10-day shooting spree in Los Angeles in 2013 that killed four people, including two police officers.

“When I think of what’s a reasonable regulation, it’s that balance between a law-abiding person having the right to own something but then the responsibility that, hey, you have to jump through a couple more hoops if you’re buying something particularly lethal,” said David Chipman, a senior policy adviser at Americans for Responsible Solutions.

The pro-gun community says silencers can make shooting safer, more enjoyable and more “neighborly” while protecting shooters from hearing loss. They cite federal studies that say exposure to noise over 140 decibels is dangerous and gunfire exceeds that level. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., an avid shooter, says silencers are about “safety.”

“When I take my son out and teach him how to shoot, I’m supposed to try to make that gun as loud as possible? Or am I supposed to do everything I can to try to protect his hearing?” Cox said. “The joke is you go to any hunting club and ask one of the older members a question and, the answer is always, 'Huh? What?' ”

Chipman said silencers are not certified as hearing protection and he worries that the gun lobby argument and the bill title could dupe buyers into thinking silencers alone can save their hearing. Ear plugs and ear muffs are tested and used by law enforcement and the U.S. military for hearing protection.

“I would hate for anyone who is not as informed as a gun expert ... to misunderstand that they can fire a gun with just a silencer and not use hearing protection,” said Chipman, a former ATF special agent.

At the NRA’s indoor gun range, reporters were advised to wear protective earplugs and protective earmuffs, and yes, a loud blast from the guns equipped with silencers was still audible and still sounded like gunfire.

Williams offered up a trial with a 9 mm Glock, one of his personal favorites. The pistol he keeps at home is equipped with a silencer, he said. Wouldn’t he want the gun to be extra noisy to alert neighbors if he used it for self-defense against an intruder?

No, he says.

“I don’t want to have to say, ‘I shot the gun, now I need hearing aids,’ ” he said.