Hearing loss from shooting is cumulative and permanent, and the damage is done by the rounds you fire without protection because it was only going to be one or two.
Electronic or passive? Electronic muffs — Walker's Razor, Peltor Sport-Tac and ProTac — amplify normal sound and cut the shot, so you can hold a conversation, hear a dog and still be protected. Passive muffs and plugs simply attenuate. For anything social or instructional, electronic is worth the money.
Muffs or plugs? This is the real decision for shotgunners. A muff cup fouls the comb on gun mount, which is why a lot of clay and game shooters run moulded or filtered plugs instead — Decibullz custom-moulded, Auritech's ceramic filters, or ISOtunes' shooting earbuds. Rifle shooters off a bench or a bipod have no such problem and are usually better served by muffs, which attenuate more.
Doubling up — plugs under muffs — is sensible indoors or beside an unmoderated centrefire.
Eye protection matters for clays, rimfire and reloading: ricochet and fragment injuries are what safety glasses are actually there for.
Go deeper: hearing protection · eye protection · Peltor · Walker's
