Can a gun be silenced like in the movies? The depiction of guns in movies is, famously, not very exact. (Guns are cocked dramatically a thousand times over and safety standards don't even seem to exist). However, one aspect I was wondering about is the (in)famous silencer: Transforming a loud -bang- into a small "pew pew". (For examples, check the first scene from "Sin City", where the narrator even comments on the gun being turned into "a whisper" by the silencer). This would mean that a gunshot gets reduced from about 150 to 170 dB to around 20 to 40 dB. Now this, in movies, is always achieved by a simple metal tube screwed on top of the gun. Now, as someone who does not live in the US and doesn't know a thing about guns, I was wondering: **Can a gun be silenced to a level of about 40dB?**

Evidence that movie gun silencers are not as effective as stated is all over the Internet.

According to Wikipedia:

> Live tests by independent reviewers of numerous commercially available suppressors find that even low-power, unsuppressed .22 LR handguns produce gunshots over 160 decibels. In testing, most of the suppressors reduced the volume to between 130 and 145 dB, with the quietest suppressors metering at 117 dB. The actual suppression of sound ranged from 14.3 to 43 dB, with most data points around the 30 dB mark. A notable example is the De Lisle carbine, a British World War II suppressed rifle used in small numbers by Special Forces. This was recorded at 85.5 dB in official firing tests.