Suppressors Should Be No More Regulated than Pencils

Silencing is Not a Crime

Apparently the anti-gun groups are having a right fit now that the SHARE Act is moving in Congress. The silencer part of the bill seems to be what they are particularly hysterical about. What the hell is the big deal? Without a gun, what are you going to do with it? To me it makes about as much sense regulating optics. It is an accessory, and not in itself a potentially dangerous tool.

Look, I get the antis are going to argue up and down that firearms aren’t regulated enough in this country, but there’s just nothing particularly dangerous about silencers. That’s a fact. But suppressors would make a huge difference to the community in terms of saving hearing and cutting down on noise emitted from gun ranges. They should be no more regulated than pencils, because a pencil can be sharpened and used as an improvised weapon. A suppressor? Maybe you could throw it at someone and put a big knot on their head.

19 thoughts on “Suppressors Should Be No More Regulated than Pencils”

  1. The funny thing is, it’s not difficult to imagine an alternate universe where the anti-gunners would want to require silencers on all firearms for health and safety reasons. They’d love that silencers make firearms more expensive and less concealable too.

    Of course, then you’d also have gun owners who would pay $200 and wait a year so they could own a firearm without a silencer on it.

  2. I’m not a big fan of a 4473 for a supressor, but I’ll take it over the current NFA nonsense.

    Maybe they should take the NFA division away from ATF and put it someplace where they can process the paperwork in a timely fashion. 6 months to a year to run a NICS check and update a database is ludicrous.

    1. If it was just a NICS check it would be almost instant. When you submit a Form 1 or Form 4 with photos and fingerprints for NFA items, you get a full FBI Criminal Background Check. That is why the long wait.
      That is why suppressors should be removed from the NFA.

      1. Geoff, that FBI check takes – at most – 3 weeks. And as I understand it, that’s because the ATF actually ships the FP cards to DC for processing.

        When ATF first moved to West By God Virginia, I had two transfers take 4 weeks mailbox to effing mailbox before the standard operational bureaucrapic mentality took over.

        Not that all this simply needs to go away. The whole NFA is hopelessly obsolete.

    2. The next step is the HUSH Act that would deregulate silencers completely, though I highly doubt it will go anywhere.
      Just seeing the SHARE Act go through will be a huge step; if I understand my history correctly, it will be the first time EVER that federal gun regulations have been loosened.
      But I will still be surprised if the SHARE Act passes – the Republicans have too strong a history of pulling defeat from the jaws of victory to expect them to carry through on something this important.

  3. “suppressors would make a huge difference to the community in terms of saving hearing and cutting down on noise emitted from gun ranges”

    That right there is their objection; It benefits gun owners.

  4. I think its just their default “gun owners want it so it must be bad!” argument.

  5. Hollywood is to blame. Hitmen and criminals use them because it makes a gun so quiet, you can murder someone while people are just a few feet away, and no one will hear a thing.

    1. Of course, the irony is that if silencers really were effective in crime, criminals would use them, whether or not they are legal.

      Indeed, the primary reason why criminals *don’t* use them, is for the same reason they don’t generally use rifles: it’s hard to conceal.

      If Congress were to make grenades legal tomorrow — not just legal, but able to purchase without a background check — I suspect something similar would happen: nothing. Grenades aren’t all that difficult to make; the very fact that they aren’t used in crime indicates that they aren’t all that useful to commit crimes, too.

  6. I have permanent ear damage from shooting a shotgun while wearing only ear plugs (hyperacusis).

    Please shoot with suppressors so you won’t end up like me.

  7. Suppressors? Great.

    But where in the heck in National Concealed Carry Reciprocity?

    I broke the law again last weekend when I went to CA.

    1. If the GOP wants to serve up suppressors and gutting GCA’s “sporting purposes” nonsense as an appetizer, I’ll gladly partake and tell them how good it is. And then still demand the main course.

      1. A really good point that needs highlighted- getting rid of the “sporting purposes” nonsense is incredibly important to decreasing restrictions on guns federally. Lots regulations are tied to that language, and getting rid of it opens up so much for us.

    2. The rumor I saw (Nappen repeating something he heard from LaPierre) was that both would get floor votes in October.

      Hearsay on top of hearsay.

  8. “I broke the law again last weekend when I went to CA…”

    Did your firearm work less-well for want of a piece of paper? ;-)

    1. Fortunately, I didn’t have to use it. But I presume it would have.

      However, as you should know I could have been subject to pretty severe sanctions for carrying a loaded gun in my vehicle in CA.

      NCCR would fix that. So maybe you shouldn’t joke about it.

  9. While we’re at it, the whole classification of short-barreled rifles and pistols has become completely ridiculous. Why should anyone care if I get a pistol with a braid, then shoulder it, which is effectively what a short-barreled rifle does.

Comments are closed.