why do people use shooting range ear muffs?

You should always wear some kind of ear protection, even if firing only a few rounds. Loud noises are to the ears as asbestos exposure is to the lungs. Just a little noise now, and then no more, won't be noticeable. But just as asbestos exposure, it is cumulative. That means whatever small amount of harm is done now stays with you, it never goes away. It gets a little bit worse with each exposure. By the time you notice your hearing getting worse it's too late. If you shoot a lot without hearing protection start saving a little money as time goes by, good hearing aids can cost $1000, $2000, or more.

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You better believe just one exposure as in the first time you fire a gun can damage your hearing. You also better re-think about blasting loud music from your earphones because that is just as damaging. The vast majority of veterans from ALL wars have serious hearing loss. There were at one time 4 vets from WW2 who lived on the street I grew up and all of them ended up wearing hearing aids. That's 4 out of 4 - you think you can beat those odds?

Many of those WW2 veterans ended up with significant hearing loss. According to a DOD study, in 2010 the government paid over $1.4 billion in disability benefits to veterans for hearing loss. It is a serious problem and when you are at the range having fun there is no excuse for not protecting your hearing.

You`re just too young to remember the people that came back from WWII with ruptured eardrums and hearing loss. People wear ear protection to avoid that.

Hearing loss is cumulative from exposure.

Lots of GI s used cotton, Swedish wool, cigarette filters to keep things in check....too much is too much though

Those people have bad hearing, you can't get use to damaging sounds, you just notice them less as your perforated ear drum transfers what little it can pick up to your dying celia in your inner ear.

"people in world war 2 used those guns and were around artillery fire and a whole bunch of explosions" And now those people are all deaf as a post.

I served in Vietnam and now I wear a free $5000 set of hearing aids courtesy of the V.A.

firing a gun can damage your hearing irreversibly; they're loud and if you happen to be in an enclosed space then the echo will certainly damage the ear membrane / cause the hairs inside to break ( tinnitus ).

I knew a WWII veteran who had a hearing aid in each ear. At the time he was my co-worker, and he was almost 70 at that time.

He explained to us that doctors had told him that they could identify which weapon a veteran had carried in the war by what specific frequencies were missing from their hearing. He carried a BAR, and his doctor correctly guessed that in his case.

Girl can't get pregnant the first time either right ???