what makes a silencer

Not to start a flame, but unlike most people who " quote " the constitution, I have actually read it, and unless I missed it some where, nowhere does it say anything about the right to own silencers. Klyph3 Where in the constitution is that part so I can refresh my memory
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Under the law, silencers themselves are firearms.

I guess I'm a little put off by laws that can prosecute you based on your perceived intent. No one knows my intent but myself, maybe I want to go shooting and change my oil, or change the oil of a friends car and show him my guns. The fact that we have to worry about felony jail time for such benign behavior is outrageous. Moreso when you realize there is no physical crime against any person, they're accusing you of intent to make your firearm slightly less hazardous without paying the tax for improving the safety of said firearm. It's madness.
 
The fact that we have to worry about felony jail time for such benign behavior is outrageous.
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It would be outrageous if you really had to worry about it.

You don't, unless you really are trying to use them as silencers as evidenced by the fact that you have the appropriate thread adapter or have a firearm modified to accept an oil filter.

Are you even reading the responses on this thread? It's like you're under the impression that if you say something over and over it's going to become true after awhile.

You do NOT need to worry about owning oil filters and firearms. You DO need to worry about it if you are taking steps to use oil filters as silencers and haven't followed the established procedures for doing so legally.
 
First time I heard of a oil filter being used as a silencer was in an old movie.
No threading was required, the bad guy just shoved the muzzle of a small caliber revolver into the hole so it wedged in place.

I'd never thought this would work till I saw a video demonstration of the thread adapter not long ago.

A small caliber revolver can be muffled quite effectively by a throw pillow, or practically anything thick and soft that you can wrap around the frame and muzzle.
The item should be damp or it can smolder and catch fire later on.

In England horse breeders can buy silenced small bore shotguns. The barrel has ports drilled for most of its length and theres a barrel jacket. Apparently this work well for killing vermin without spooking horses.
 
JohnKSa: I'm afraid you do have to worry about it, whether you own an actual firearm or not.

The short version is the BATF gets to determine what constitutes a silencer, and the way the way it's written now just about anything can be crammed into that category.

I have first hand experience with this and while it is questionable that I would have suffered any legal consequence, the business owner I was working with most certainly could have.

He wasn't in the gun business either, unless you consider paintball markers "guns". We manufactured aftermarket barrels for various paintball markers and some versions had what from a visual standpoint looked very muck like a silencer.

Removed from the barrel it was a piece of PVC pipe, two rubber o-rings, two delrin disks that pressed around the barrel, and a piece of furnace filter foam. Keep in mind the barrel itself was drilled full of holes and was itself an integral part of this system and when everything else was removed they were just a handful of plastic and rubber. The purpose of this stuff was to absorb the CO2 cloud when CO2 was the dominant power source before compressed air took off.

The fact that this stuff was just so much junk unless pressed on a barrel that was about .800 in diameter and punched full of holes made no difference to the two BATF agents that showed up, in person, to investigate. After all, you could just hack saw the barrel, slip it over a .22, and duct tape it in place. It only has to work once, and it only has to be 1db, and you've got yourself a silencer.

When the official paperwork came in it was cease and desist immediately. Failure to comply meant probable jail time and severe fines.

This isn't rumor or I had a friend that knew some guys brother. I was there. I even have a copy of the ruling floating around somewhere within all my household junk, though I doubt I could find it on purpose.

Bottom line is THEY get decide, not you or me, and the way it's written they can squeeze almost anything into that category if they feel they need to.

You don't have to take my word. Do a google search on BOA Barrels, The Concealer, and the BATF. I'm sure the story will pop up somewhere.
 
This whole discussion perfectly demonstrates how ridiculous the suppressor rules are, making about as much sense as a trailer hitch tax for a device that allows your car to function as a truck. Oil filter adapters are made/sold/owned legally as solvent traps without a tax stamp and work well for their intended purpose.
 
And if you have a negligent discharge while using your solvent trap, you can easily have your gun rights removed, since you will be a felon under the law.
 
Space coast: Can you explain to me how this solvent trap works? I mean I look at it and I know what "I" think, but I haven't found yet what it's claimed function is supposed to be.
 
And yes, the rules are rather ridiculous, from our perspective, but if you are a regulatory agency they make great sense. They are so incredibly sweeping as to be effectively all encompassing when it comes to what fits into the definition of what constitutes a silencer or silencer parts. In essence if you have a two liter bottle of coke, a box of tissue, and a roll of duct tape in the same location as a firearm the BATF could make a case that you had intent to make a silencer. Pretty dang stupid, but that still wouldn't prevent you from having to defend yourself in court.
 
It's real simple, the solvent trap catches fluid and dirt pushed out of the barrel during the process of cleaning, using an oil filter as the catch basin. Hence the "solvent trap"
 
It's real simple, the solvent trap catches fluid and dirt pushed out of the barrel during the process of cleaning, using an oil filter as the catch basin. Hence the "solvent trap"
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Ah. Rigggght.... (in my best Dr. Evil voice) :)
 
I'm afraid you do have to worry about it, whether you own an actual firearm or not.

The short version is the BATF gets to determine what constitutes a silencer, and the way the way it's written now just about anything can be crammed into that category.
....

Removed from the barrel it was a piece of PVC pipe, two rubber o-rings, two delrin disks that pressed around the barrel, and a piece of furnace filter foam. Keep in mind the barrel itself was drilled full of holes and was itself an integral part of this system and when everything else was removed they were just a handful of plastic and rubber. The purpose of this stuff was to absorb the CO2 cloud when CO2 was the dominant power source before compressed air took off.
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There's a WORLD of difference in making muzzle attachments (be it for airguns or firearms) and merely owning an oil filter, a two liter bottle or a lawnmower muffler.
In essence if you have a two liter bottle of coke, a box of tissue, and a roll of duct tape in the same location as a firearm the BATF could make a case that you had intent to make a silencer.
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That's stretching, but even if we accept that as fact, there's a simple solution. Don't save 2 liter bottles and store them along with duct tape with your firearms. Really, all you need to avoid is actually attaching them to a firearm.
And if you have a negligent discharge while using your solvent trap, you can easily have your gun rights removed, since you will be a felon under the law.
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NOW we're getting closer to reality.

YES. If you put an attachment on your gun that can reduce the noise of the discharge, if you buy an attachment for your gun that is, in every respect minus a hole on the front, a silencer and then attach it to your gun and shoot a hole in it so it can actually be used as a silencer, then you are definitely in a lot of trouble if you get caught.

It bears repeating that this is WORLDS different than merely owning an oil filter.
 
Care to elaborate?
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Sure. You bring your firearm with threaded barrel and solvent trap to your favorite shooting spot. After firing corrosive ammo you like to immediately flush the bore. In your undue haste (it's rusting!) You negligently discharge a round through the filter. Dang, better get this gun home to flush the bore in an environmentally conscious manner. Not wanting to get solvent in your range bag, you toss the filter in the back of your truck and start driving home. Your tail light burns out and a local peace officer pulls you over. As he approaches your vehicle, he notes the NRA lifetime membership bumpersticker and happens to also notice the oil filter with an outward hole dead center. He knows exactly how that happened (he's seen the YouTube video). This gives him probable cause to search your vehicle upon which he discovers a firearm with a threaded barrel and an adapter to attach it to the oil filter. But officer, it was an accident you see... Yeah yeah, tell it to the judge. You tell it to the judge, but he is even less understanding than the officer. He informs you that he feels very strongly that evading taxes is not something he tolerates and to send a strong message to the community, he hands down a sentence of 10 years and 10,000 dollars. This happens to be only one tenth the cost that the law firm you hired charged for your defense. Your wife, now homeless, penniless and unable to support herself, meets a man named Hank who drives truck and promises to support her. In prison, your cellmate also happens to be named Hank, you ask if he ever drove truck, but he says no. Ah well, you think, can't have it all I guess. Hank kisses you goodnight and you dream of shooting your guns, which you'll NEVER be allowed to do EVER again.
 
While reasonably plausible, that is a far, FAR cry from being prosecuted for merely owning an oil filter as you claimed when you posted: "According to the letter of the law, they CAN charge you with illegal possession of an NFA item for owning an oil filter."

The person in your intricate scenario is NOT being prosecuted for "owning an oil filter". He is being prosecuted for buying something that's one hole away from being a silencer, attaching it to his gun (requiring threading the barrel and purchasing or making an adapter), and then putting a hole into it, making it fit the legal definition of a silencer in every respect. In other words, he's being prosecuted for owning something that is totally indistinguishable from an illegal silencer (and which therefore IS an illegal silencer), not for merely "owning an oil filter".

To make this happen, the guy in your story had to buy the oil filter, buy the adapter, thread a firearm barrel, attach the adapter to the gun, attach the oil filter to the adapter and then shoot a hole in it. Shooting a hole in the filter might have been an accident, but everything up to that point was essentially impossible to do by accident. In other words, anyone who wants to avoid being prosecuted for this sort of thing can easily manage to do so.

Do I agree with the silencer laws and how they're enforced? No. But let's not be ridiculous about this. People aren't being prosecuted for merely owning oil filters, nor is there any danger of something like that happening.
 
Fair enough, however the ATFs interpretation of "constructive intent" continues to broaden, it's no stretch of the imagination to say that it's only a matter of time.
 
Reasonable and informed people are posting, but unreasonable and uninformed people are reading. I think a dead horse is still being beaten..
 
This stuff is sort of like the idea that any male can be convicted of rape because he is "in possession" of the necessary equipment.

Can anyone provide a real case, name of accused, court date, location or any other information on anyone charged with illegally possessing a firearm silencer because he/she had a soft drink bottle, an oil filter, a couch cushion, a solvent trap, a cotton wad or some other device that could might possibly maybe sort of be used as a maybe sort of could be silencer somewhere in the vicinity of a firearm?

Jim
 
JamesK said:
Can anyone provide a real case, name of accused, court date, location or any other information on anyone charged with illegally possessing a firearm silencer because he/she had a soft drink bottle, an oil filter, a couch cushion, a solvent trap, a cotton wad or some other device that could might possibly maybe sort of be used as a maybe sort of could be silencer somewhere in the vicinity of a firearm?
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See post #24 of this thread.
 
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