Best trust me on this one.

If the SHTF, your hearing will be the last thing you need to be concerned about. Hearing loss comes from extended exposure to high decibels such as factory noise, closeness to aircraft and such. It can also be inherited. One or two shots in an area the size of a home is not going to be of concern. Inside a car it would matter if the widows were rolled up. Outdoors hearing a couple of shots will not be damaging.

Wearing earmuffs or any hearing protection during a crisis is not good. You may fail to hear a family members pleading, a suspect surrendering, words of caution in other directions and many more things. Suppose it was a plain clothes officer chasing a subject into your home and he is on the heels of the suspect yelling "Police Officer?" How are you going to hear him?

Granted there are many things other than gunshots that cause lack of hearing. Hunters seldom have hearing loss but they do not cover their ears for the most part. A person is more subject to hearing loss due to radio volume in a closed car than due to an in-home crisis in which shots are fired.

I have had to fire inside a home during an emergency. I never heard the gunshot. Being involved in a car crash will be more decibels.

Forty years ago, we would shoot all day long and I had never seen, worn or owned any hearing protection.

I own a dosimeter and have checked the levels of many things for legal reasons. You are exposed to things much worse and more often than a SHTF situation.