Trump 'Seriously' Considering Banning Suppressors

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SKILCZ

Inactive
I agree that this is a great time to note the benefits of suppressors.

SKILCZ said:
Before people say that it could never happen, do not forget that Trump just unilaterally banned bump stocks in a complete reversal of prior ATF rulings.
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Did the ATF ban bump stocks or re-classify them as NFA items?

The Pierce Morgan interview is sort of interesting. At one point, Morgan asks why anyone would need a semi-automatic AR15 to which DJT responds that "some people find them entertaining". Morgan's incisive follow up is "Are they entertaining?" to which DJT notes that people go to ranges and find great entertainment in that.

My recollection is that bumpstocks were classified as NFA items. Suppressors are already NFA regulated items.

I've never heard a non-hysterical argument against suppressors. Noise reduction, especially harmful noise reduction, is a social good.
 
The reality is most Americans probably identify suppressors with the "Hit Men" they see on TV and in the movies. There has never really been a push to ban them outright because the realty is they aren't a problem. However, with a little media sensationalism and half truths I suspect most people would support banning them.
 
In most of the world suppressors are available at the local hardware store and can
be purchased cheap with minimal paperwork. It's considered polite and being a good
citizen to reduce the noise produced by your firearm.

Interesting that it was a legally purchased suppressor. Fingerprints, pictures, local
law sign-off, SERIOUS background check and a wait period that can last over a year--

Kind of negates any arguement for enhanced background checks and short wait
periods being a deterent to crime doesn't it?
 
BillM said:
In most of the world suppressors are available at the local hardware store and can be purchased cheap with minimal paperwork. It's considered polite and being a good citizen to reduce the noise produced by your firearm.
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That's what I said in my e-mail to El Presidente.
 
However, with a little media sensationalism and half truths I suspect most people would support banning them.
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You asked for it, you got it.
(I know you didn't really ask for it, I'm just being flippant.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...-an-ominous-precedent/?utm_term=.3907ec59c033

Here's a quote from the article.
(a suppressed gunshot can sound like a chair scraping on the floor)
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The opinion piece was reprinted in my local paper too.

P.S. I'm sad and a little frustrated. A couple years ago I started seeing "regular" companies like Ruger putting threaded barrels on some of their guns and thought maybe, just maybe some "common sense" gun legislation might actually happen and the restrictions on suppressors might be lifted.
 
Anyone have any idea how many crimes have been committed with legally owned suppressors since 1934?

(and I mean in the real world, not on a movie or tv screen)
 
I have an idea how this could be resolved.

Hear me out: All of the "good guy" cops on all the CBS prime-time shoot-em-up cop shows - NCIS*, FBI, SWAT, Hawaii 5-0, etc. etc. - start using suppressors to protect their own and each other's hearing. Only the criminals/bad guys use non suppressed guns when they shoot at the good guys, then immediately get nailed by the suppressed return fire. That's several dozen bad guys every week, shot by cops who will one day still be able to hear their grand kids ask for ice cream.

Presto! Suppressors == good, everyone should have one.
 
Anyone have any idea how many crimes have been committed with legally owned suppressors since 1934?
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We're not even sure the Virginia Beach shooting actually involved one or whether the shooter just owned one.
 
44AMP said:
Anyone have any idea how many crimes have been committed with legally owned suppressors since 1934?
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The ATF confirmed that silencers are rarely used in crimes despite their explosion in popularity. The agency has only recommended prosecutions for 44 silencer-related crimes per year over the past decade. That means roughly .003 percent of silencers are used in crimes each year. Of those 44 crimes per year, only 6 involved defendants with prior felony convictions.
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https://freebeacon.com/issues/atf-d...n-silencers-united-states-rarely-used-crimes/

Maybe my question isn't smart. If a lad sticks a soda bottle over the end of a rifle and is successfully prosecuted, was that a crime in which a silencer was used?

I'm wondering how many of those 44 crimes were anyone actually being shot at or threatened with a suppressed weapon.
 
If a lad sticks a soda bottle over the end of a rifle and is successfully prosecuted, was that a crime in which a silencer was used?
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Yes, absolutely.

I'm wondering how many of those 44 crimes were anyone actually being shot at or threatened with a suppressed weapon.
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My guess would be that part of the answer is in the quoted passage,

The agency has only recommended prosecutions for 44 silencer-related crimes per year over the past decade. ... Of those 44 crimes per year, only 6 involved defendants with prior felony convictions.
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"Silencer related crimes" includes the crime of attempting to silence a firearm without prior Federal approval. The silencer doesn't even have to WORK for it to be a convictable offense. As the law is written the crime is the attempt to silence the firearm, absent prior Federal approval.

SO, a homemade "can" (or pop bottle or oil filter) even if that doesn't actually reduce the sound level of the report is still a FEDERAL CRIME if the intent is to reduce the sound of gunfire.

They did not say "assaults" or "homicides", or even robberies, they said "silencer related crimes".. Every attempted silencer done without prior Fed approval is a crime. Simple possession of the necessary parts (unassembled) might be a silencer related crime (constructive possession).

Miscopy the serial number on the paperwork might be a silencer related crime. And, I would expect a convicted felon in possession of an NFA item would also be a crime, so there is a LOT of things that aren't any kind of attack on another human that could be a "silencer related crime".

so, let me rephrase, and ask, does anyone know (roughly) how many shootings /murders have been done with LEGALLY owned silencers since the NFA took effect??

I would ask the same about legal machine guns. I've heard there have been two. But I personally have no data...
 
If a lad sticks a soda bottle over the end of a rifle and is successfully prosecuted, was that a crime in which a silencer was used?
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Yes.
For example...
I can't remember the case name or thread right now, but there was a (somewhat) recent discussion about a man convicted of manufacturing and possessing illegal firearms (suppressors), because he 'built' two toilet paper tubes stuffed with 'Teddy Bear' filling.

Even though it NEVER would have worked on a real firearm (a keystone of the ATF allowing unregulated suppressors on air guns), he was convicted based upon his intent (to use/sell) and his belief (that it would work).
 
I don't assume that the agency only recommends prosecution where the individual is already a felon, but it's the very opacity of the language in the article that prompts one to ask what they are including in the statistic.

44 AMP said:
so, let me rephrase, and ask, does anyone know (roughly) how many shootings /murders have been done with LEGALLY owned silencers since the NFA took effect??
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I would even recognize incidents in which threats of violence were involved and no shots were fired. The number with real meaning would need to exclude the lad with the soda bottle whose only "suppressor related crime" was possessing one without a stamp; that doesn't describe any genuine harm from which society can reasonably seek protection.
 
I would even recognize incidents in which threats of violence were involved and no shots were fired. The number with real meaning would need to exclude the lad with the soda bottle whose only "suppressor related crime" was possessing one without a stamp; that doesn't describe any genuine harm from which society can reasonably seek protection.
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Or everyone's favorite retired school teacher, Hickock45. He did a video testing that commercially-available oil filter adapter. According to him, the manufacturer got it approved by the BATFE as a suppressor, so you only pay the $200 tax when you buy the adapter, not a separate tax each time you replace the filter.

I wondered when I watched the video if Hickock45 paid the $200 tax and did all the paperwork before taking possession for his video.
 
According to him, the manufacturer got it approved by the BATFE as a suppressor, so you only pay the $200 tax when you buy the adapter, not a separate tax each time you replace the filter.
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That was a dangerous myth, and the companies marketing those adapters were terribly irresponsible in misleading their customers. As of 1986, a silencer is defined as,

any device for silencing, muffling, or diminishing the report of a portable firearm, including any combination of parts, designed or redesigned, and intended for use in assembling or fabricating a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, and any part intended only for use in such assembly or fabrication. [18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(24)]
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The ATF shut down several sites that were marketing those things.

I spoke with a guy from the Baltimore (Salter? Can't recall.) field division on the issue, and he said they wouldn't register an adapter. The actual oil filter (or whatever people stuck on it) was the part that does the sound suppression, and that's the part that has to be registered.
People were misled into thinking they could just replace the filter when it wore out, but that is absolutely not the case.

...which brings us back to "silencer crimes." As with the majority of "assault weapons" prosecutions in the 1990's, these are statutory violations, not violent crimes. The biggest example is the use of improvised silencers by poachers.

Of course, lumping "gun crimes" into one whole makes for better rhetoric, and I've no doubt we'll be hearing ridiculous figures on silencers in the weeks to come.
 
Tom Servo said:
According to him, the manufacturer got it approved by the BATFE as a suppressor, so you only pay the $200 tax when you buy the adapter, not a separate tax each time you replace the filter.
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That was a dangerous myth, and the companies marketing those adapters were terribly irresponsible in misleading their customers. As of 1986, a silencer is defined as,

any device for silencing, muffling, or diminishing the report of a portable firearm, including any combination of parts, designed or redesigned, and intended for use in assembling or fabricating a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, and any part intended only for use in such assembly or fabrication. [18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(24)]
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The ATF shut down several sites that were marketing those things.
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I wondered about that.

So I guess Patreon should start a separate fund to put up Hicock45's bail when the BATFE come knocking on his door ...

Link to Hicock45's video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t_pcWPdSDs

Link to the device:
https://cadizgunworks.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=79

And the catch is that it's not just the adapter that's sold as "the" suppressor. It's the assembly, the adapter AND the filter.

THIS IS A REGISTERED CLASS 3 ITEM....READ BEFORE PURCHASING...

The Econo Can Suppressor comes as a complete unit with the oil filter attached, serial numbered and registered with ATF/NFA.

...

If or when you need to change the filter out, the ATF/NFA rules says it needs to come back to the original manufacture, which Cadiz Gun Works is. The cost is $25.00. The complete Econo-Can Suppressor can be shipped directly to us, for gunsmithing, which would be replacement/rehab/repair of the oil filter, with the serial # remarked, and documented as being replaced/rehabbed/repaired. The completed Econo Can Suppressor can be sent back to you at your address on your NFA Tax Stamp Form. You do not need to go though a dealer for gunsmithing services. The life of the oil filter varies depending on caliber used and bullet type. (ex. AR15=300-500 rds)
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So they get around it by telling you that every 500 (or whatever) rounds, instead of heading down to AutoZone to buy a bunch of cheap oil filters, you're supposed to send the whole thing back to them and they'll screw on a new oil filter and send it back to you. I wonder how many customers actually do that.

Hickock45 conveniently omitted that from his discussion (or I just missed it).
 
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