“And besides, why would civilians even need a silencer for guns, anyways? Last I checked, silencers would be needed in order to avoid detection if you shoot a gun, such as during black ops or assassinations, and I really don’t see the need for a silencer when, say, trying to ward off burglars inside your house (if anything, keeping it unsilenced would ward the burglars off just from shooting.). Now, if they’re trying to ward off someone actively trying to kill you, that might be a good reason to have a silencer.”
First of all, these devises are NOT silencers. They are suppressors - and that is not a semantic argument. They suppress, or reduce, the noise of a round of ammunition as it is fired. Reduce, as in “you can still hear it, quite well.” The main purpose of having a suppressor is to preserve your hearing (if you’re the shooter), to preserve the hearing of those around you and, if you’re shooting outside, to not annoy people nearby who are not on the range.
Can hitmen use them? Yes, just the same as they can use a firearm without a suppressor to commit murder. Being equipped to commit a crime doesn’t mean that you will do so - witness the 100 million adult males who don’t commit rape, ever, despite being equipped to do so.
This isn’t about need, it isn’t about what anyone likes, it is simply about the 2nd Amendment protection (from government infringement) of our right to keep and bear “arms.” “Arms” is everything that can be used on a battlefield other than (IMHO) weapons that cannot discriminate between one combatant and another, or between combatants and civilians (i.e. WMDs). If the government can own a rifle, then so can civilians. If the government can own suppressors, then so can civilians. If the government can own artillery, THEN SO CAN CIVILIANS (and it is THAT, precisely, to which the Article 1, Section 8 power of the Congress to issue “Letters of Marque and Reprisal” refers. These are Congressional authorization for civilians to take on foreign military or maritime forces...and necessarily implies that civilians would own ships capable of carrying cannon (many of them) and the cannon themselves. These were issued by the Continental Congress, so those who wrote this clause into the Constitution knew of it very well - and obviously approved - and Letters were issued in large numbers during the War of 1812.
If you can own cannon according to the Constitution, then sound suppressors are an EASY reach, even if the Founders never knew of them.
Yeah, back then, I might not have thought it through, and if anything, I have to thank some users on here for setting me straight.