From the Associated Press down through PBS and local broadcast media—all using the AP story as their base—the establishment media appears to be having fits over a proposal included in President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” on taxes which would remove noise suppressors and short-barreled rifles and shotguns from regulation under the National Firearms Act (NFA).
TGM did a quick browser search and found several television reports all based on the AP story, which says—among other things—that, “Democrats are fighting to stop the provision, which was unveiled days after two Minnesota state legislators were shot in their homes, as the bill speeds through the Senate.”
True enough, as perennial anti-gun Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer of New York declared earlier this month, “Senate Democrats will fight this provision at the parliamentary level and every other level with everything we’ve got.”
The effort to remove sound suppressors from NFA regulation is called the Hearing Protection Act (HPA), since these devices are designed to dramatically lower the decibel level of a muzzle blast. They are not “silencers” which completely eliminate noise, as proponents are scrambling to explain all over social media and in online comments sections of various television stations.
For example, KING in Seattle posted the story on its Facebook page, and received more than 350 comments from readers and listeners. Those reactions cover all the bases, from supportive of the measure to vehemently and/or sarcastically against it.
Important to HPA supporters is that it removes a $200 tax on owning a suppressor. Proponents consider this an unconstitutional tax on a Second Amendment-protected right.
Democrats, according to the AP report, “argue that loosening regulations on silencers could make it easier for criminals and active shooters to conceal their weapons,” an argument which gun owners see as ludicrous. Adding a suppressor to a gun’s muzzle makes it far less capable of being concealed.
Proponents of the legislation repeatedly remind skeptics and outright opponents that suppressors are seldom used in crime, and are more likely to be used by hunters and recreational shooters, especially those using indoor ranges. The AP/PBS story referred to a House floor demand by young firebrand Congressman Maxwell Frost, who endorsed anti-gunner David Hogg for election as DNC vice chairman earlier this year—a short-lived performance when Hogg declared he would spend up to $20 million to unseat veteran Democrats and replace them with newcomers like Frost—to know “who asked for” the legislation.
Veteran GOP Congressman Andrew Clyde of Georgia quickly replied, “I asked.” Clyde is a firearms retailer in Georgia. Frost repeated an argument with no foundation when he stated the HPA would help “gun manufacturers make more money off the death of children and our people.”
Frost asserted last Nov. 1 that Florida’s permitless carry law was responsible for a Halloween shooting the night before in Orlando, which Frost represents.
But evidently the rookie congressman didn’t read the fine print about that shooting, which revealed the police arrested a 17-year-old in relation to the incident. People that age are not allowed to carry handguns anywhere, meaning the suspect was carrying a gun illegally already. A law allowing suppressors to be more easily purchased would not have had any bearing on the incident.
