I’m surprised
I never would have thought the bill to remove suppressors from NFA would be gaining support and some traction:
It just makes sense, Salmon told The Daily Signal, because suppressors make a big difference, so that guys like me can shoot and keep their hearing.
Salmons father, a World War II veteran, introduced him to shooting as a sport when he was a boy. More than 50 years later, shooting has left Salmon wearing hearing aids.
Sort of a muffler for rifles and pistols, suppressors can reduce sound, flash, and recoil significantly during a gunshot. And though they dont completely silence the noise, the devices make guns quieter and safer, gun advocates say.
March 14th, 2016 at 9:01 pm
They fine me if I don’t put a muffler on my car and fine me if I do put one on my gun. Is my hearing important or what? Make up y’all’s minds!
March 14th, 2016 at 9:33 pm
Regardless whether we gunnies win or lose on this, the pearl-clutcher’s comments in opposition should be a laff riot.
March 14th, 2016 at 11:42 pm
Straight pipes on the hot rod are a bit too brash and annoying, but cherry bombs make it guttural, sexy and sublime.
I don’t want my .45 to blow out my eardrums and alarm the citizens but I don’t want it to go pfft either.
A biz idea that could make everybody happy? Probably don’t want to include the word “bomb” in the name though…
March 15th, 2016 at 2:47 am
I’m trying to understand the effect of the bill. The introduction says “To provide that silencers be treated the same as long guns.”
So dealers would have to conduct a background check? Private sales would not require a check?
And at the end, this section seems to forbid state taxation or registration of silencers, but continue to allow banning them???
SEC. 4. PREEMPTION OF CERTAIN STATE LAWS IN RELATION TO FIREARM SILENCERS.
Section 927 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: “Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, a law of a State or a political subdivision of a State that, as a condition of lawfully making, transferring, using, possessing, or transporting a firearm silencer in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, imposes a tax on any such conduct, or a marking, recordkeeping or registration requirement with respect to the firearm silencer, shall have no force or effect.”.
March 15th, 2016 at 7:41 am
Kevin,
Suppressors are currently regulated as “firearms” under both National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Act. Under this bill, suppressors would no longer be subject to the provisions of the NFA, which means suppressors would generally be treated the same as long guns under federal law with the small caveat that a buyer would still have to be 21 years of age to acquire a suppressor from an FFL due to a quirk in the wording of 18 U.S.C.A. S 922(b)(1).
The preemption section is necessary because several states have laws that currently prohibit possession of suppressors unless they are lawfully registered as required by federal law. Since this bill would eliminate the registration requirement, if the bill were enacted without the preemption clause, then suppressors could become illegal in several states where they are currently legal because it would no longer be possible to register them under federal law.
You are correct that the bill would not otherwise affect more restrictive state laws, as the intent is to simply remove federal impediments to lawful suppressor acquisition, not to force a single federal standard on all 50 states.
March 15th, 2016 at 11:40 am
Here’s to hoping.
March 15th, 2016 at 11:40 am
Here’s also hoping that suppressor companies have either ramped up production, or are considering what they would have to do in order to ramp up production.
Because demand is going to be ridonkulous.
March 15th, 2016 at 12:23 pm
Josh, thanks for the explanation!
March 15th, 2016 at 8:02 pm
The silencer bill is not advancing. It is DOA.
There are a series of measures that are advancing right now that contain GOP priorities, and that Obama will sign. Several of them are provisions Obama would outright veto were the stand-alone measures. But the GOP wants them to really pass into law, so they are not stand-alone measures. They are amended onto authorizations (allowing the gov’t to spend money).
This silencer bill is a stand-alone measure. It is not meant to be added to any finance bill. Do I need to spell this out?
Gun advocacy bills are nothing more than pandering. They will always lose as stand-alone measures. The only purpose they serve is for the GOPe to say to us bitter clingers, “hey, we tried but those evil Democrats stopped us. You need to send us money and votes so we can do more!”
Meanwhile, everything the Chamber of Commerce wants gets shoved into a must-sign bill.
I love you all, but anyone who thinks this is going anywhere as-is is being played by the GOPe. They are Lucy and you are not even Charlie – you are the football getting tossed around and forgotten until they need to play another round of ‘screw our constituents’.