A lot of people enjoy Shooting as a hobby or sport, and some even do it as a job.
The main issue with shooting and your ears is that the noise made by guns is truly quite loud.
This is especially the case with larger guns, like shotguns.
If you ever watch the Olympics, you will see that all of the professionals are at least wearing ear plugs, if not ear muffs as well.
Today, many of the shooting hearing protection that is available is based around the electronic hearing protection.
This is basically just a normal set of ear muffs, with small electronic devices in each ear that control the sound.
All they do is stop any very loud noises and either remove them or reduce them.
Other noises are amplified or left at the same level so that you can comfortably talk to each other without having to yell and scream! Hearing is generally lost by short, very loud noises or from relatively loud noises that occur for a long duration.
Machines are a good example of the long noises, and gun shots are an example of the short, sharp noises.
Either one of these will deplete your hearing over many years if you don't ensure you are wearing the adequate hearing protectors.
If you are using guns you should be using ear plugs as a minimum.
Ideally ear muffs should be worn as well, but this depends on the gun.
If you are just using an air rifle then you don't need any hearing protection.
Basically if you flinch when you fire the gun then the noise is too loud and you should be wearing some form of protection!