I don’t know dude, I wouldn’t rely on something like that, as contested as it is.
Of course, the hearing thing…no. I would be more concerned about having a good pair of house shoes that I can scrap in by the bed, that would be a million times more relevant than my hearing.
It was probably louder than he remembers. Sensorineural hearing loss rarely, if ever, would occur at noise levels lower than about 85db (about the noise of a lawn mower), and even then, less than 8 hours per day would protect about 90% of the population.
Auditory exclusion might keep you from being disoriented by loud noise in a stressful SD situation, but it won’t protect from hair cell damage that might contribute to some hearing loss later in life, nor would it protect against temporary threshold changes that might manifest as transient tinnitus or transient hearing loss.
if you are that worried about it, get a baseball bat
Naw, just rack the slide of a shotgun… That’s scares away the baddies 
that would make me drop the tv and run. if they wanted to track me just follow the brown streak
My fiancees sinuses require me to wear hearing protection to get a good night sleep. Luckily she is a light sleeper and will hear someone breaking in and wake me already hearing protected.
P.S. After trying many brands Howard Leight Sleepers are my preferred plug.
Auditory Exclusion alters your mental perception of sound in high stress situations.
It does absolutely nothing to prevent physical damage from pressure waves to the inner parts of the ear.
Fight or Flight does not trump Physics.
Anyone who thinks that they are going to be fortunate enough to wake from a sound slumber to hear the first quiet sounds of a burglar, a burglar ballsy enough to enter an occupied dwelling in the first place, and is going to have the wherewithal to put on hearing protection, maybe don a vest, grab a light or a cell phone, and retrieve their weapon to go and investigate is living in a fantasy world.
If you’re picking up a firearm to defend yourself, it is a life-or-death situation.
The relative merit of trying to protect yourself against a possible extremely short duration noise is so extremely small, it doesn’t even really warrant discussion.
Yes, some damage is probably done…but far less than if you’d not used the firearm at all and found yourself dead.
Interesting point. But, given the “physics trumps physiology/psychology” argument, what explains the reports of shooters exhibiting no hearing loss after discharging their weapon in an enclosed area (say a building or vehicle) while those exposed to the same sound levels in the same area showed significant hearing loss after the event?
When you say “reports”, are you talking about actual studies, or anecdotes? Whichever, you’ll have to supply those reports for review here. I’ve not seen anything like that, and it doesn’t make sense physiologically.
I agree. And if you are that bad ass that you do wake up, take your time to put ear pro on, all while the wife and kids are in a panic and your adrenaline is pumping then maybe you should start teaching home defense classes.
I think I will rely on my suppressed SBR and the fact that I know those few shots are like a small turd in the Pacific- much ado about nothing.
Dupe
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I’d have to look it up, but I believe evidence is provided in Grossman’s book which I linked in a previous post.
Yeah the last thing I am going to do if I investigate a bump in the night is to waste the time to put on something that is going to severly handicap one of my most critical senses (hearing) that will limit my abilities to locate and close with said bump.
As others have suggested if its a concern get a can, that way if you have a better half and kiddos they won’t have to worry about ear either.
…
Just a followup. In Grossman’s book, during the discussion of perceptual distortions associated with shooting-related stress, he references “the Klinger study” which consisted of interviews with 113 officers from 19 different law enforcement agencies, all of whom had survived a line-of-duty gunfight. Klinger, an ex-cop turned sociologist, conducted the research project under the auspices of the National Institute of Justice. He published a book about his research titled “Into the Kill Zone: A Cop’s Eye View of Deadly Force.” (http://www.amazon.com/Into-Kill-Zone-Deadly-Force/dp/0787986038/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338989962&sr=8-1)
Klinger also has a website (http://www.killzonevoices.com/biography.aspx) which provides some biographical information and links to the actual reports and data which were expanded upon for his book. Here’s a link to one of the reports with tables and graphs: http://www.killzonevoices.com/finalrpt3.pdf
The data do not provide the narrative accounts I referenced in my earlier comment (it’s buried in the text), but it makes for some interesting reading nonetheless. What is clear is that more research is needed to fully unravel the physiological basis for the variety of perceptual distortions reported.
Never mind…
I agree with that, but my point is that the damage from noise exposure isn’t really really manifested short term. The physiologic damage done is a cumulative thing. Short term exposure such as gunfire in a closed space may result in short term tinnitus or hearing loss which may very well reverse itself in the short run but contribute to a more pronounced hearing loss later in life as presbycusis asserts itself. I’ve not been able to find any evidence that “auditory exclusion” is anything more than a “perceptual” exclusion and unrelated to the actual physiological effects of noise damage to the hearing components. I do agree that the intrinsic ear muscles of the middle ear, tensor tympani and stapedius, may offer some protection against extreme eardrum excursion, and to that extent might be protective, but it’s not clear that that is related to the sympathetic nervous system phenomenon of auditory exclusion or “tunnel hearing”.
Wondering how/why this thread is this long considering the original post’s question. We’re into physics and hearing damage and all sorts of stuff when it could have very simply been summed up by
“Hell no you’ve got better things to worry about than ear pro”