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posted by martyb on Monday November 21 2016, @06:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the silence-is-golden dept.

A Republican trifecta in Washington next year will likely see action on a bill to remove firearm suppressors from National Firearms Act regulation after 82 years.
The Hearing Protection Act was introduced last October by U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., and currently has 78 bipartisan co-sponsors from 34 states. Since then, the HPA has been among the top 10 most-viewed bills on Congress.gov almost every week since it was introduced.

However, with a slim Republican majority in the Senate unable to override a near-certain veto from President Obama, the bill has been in doldrums.
Now, with the White House under new management next year, advocates for the measure feel signs are looking up and will likely return to the next Congress with a fresh mandate.

Why is this important? Safety has been increasing in nearly every aspect and product since the beginning of time, but allowing people to protect their hearing by adding silencers to their weapons has been a tough road for gun owners for a long while.

“Imagine for a second that we lived in a world where you had to pay a $200 tax to buy a pair of earplugs,” Knox Williams, president of the American Suppressor Association, the industry trade group for the devices, told Guns.com on Wednesday. “Now, imagine that even after paying that tax you still had to wait 8 months before you could bring your earplugs home with you. As silly as that sounds, it’s the world we live in with suppressors in the NFA.”


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  • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Monday November 21 2016, @09:56AM

    by t-3 (4907) on Monday November 21 2016, @09:56AM (#430417)

    I've never heard of crossbows being banned in the US, in fact I know a lot of hunters who use cross and regular bows for hunting because they have felony records. Probably varies by state though, I've heard in some of new england even rifles have to be registered?

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @04:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @04:21PM (#430596)

    I checked up on it a few weeks back (California now requires background checks and paperwork just to buy ammo, in addition to all other restrictions on firearms purchases.) Crossbows are legal basically across the board (I imagine 18 can't purchase, but other than that no background checks or other roadblocks to purchase.) Bows and crossbows also have the benefit of plenty of utilitarian uses that firearms do not, such as firing lines across ravines (forest service actually does this professionally, I had an archery class with a woman who did this during the summer for utility lines across a river. A good compound bow could make it across with plenty of excess range and then have the cables pulled taut on one or both ends for whatever they were using them for.)

    Sadly modern cross/compound bow ammunition is only slightly less involved tool and material-wise than reloading firearm ammunition (although probably easier than stamping your own casings) and the firing tension of modern bows is likely to shatter any 'traditionally' made wooden arrows you attempted to fire without the ability to significantly decrease the tension on your bow.

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:54AM

      by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:54AM (#431083)

      As someone who only dabbled with archery as a child, I would imagine the arrow shattering issues are largely a matter of tradeoff - all that extra power obviously lets you shoot further and flatter, and hit your target harder, but puts a lot more demand on the arrow. If you're content instead with the limited range and power that our ancestors used to hunt and wage war with for thousands of years, then you can probably find a featherweight modern bow that will fire traditional wood arrows with an ease and accuracy to make your ancestors green with envy.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @06:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @06:18AM (#431698)

        Crossbows do not shoot arrows, you dolt, they loose bolts. Shorter, stouter, usually only duofletched, and a heavier head. Best ones use Klingon cloaking technology, so you never see them coming.

  • (Score: 1) by Francis on Monday November 21 2016, @08:58PM

    by Francis (5544) on Monday November 21 2016, @08:58PM (#430831)

    It depends where you live, around here they're only legal for people with certain disabilities. And with good cause, they're deadly quiet and quite powerful. They're not as powerful as a gun, but they're substantially more powerful than a typical bow and arrow.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @06:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @06:23AM (#431700)

      Are you sure about this, Francis? Can you cite any information other than your own assertion? Silent but deadly? Please!

      • (Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday November 23 2016, @06:37AM

        by Francis (5544) on Wednesday November 23 2016, @06:37AM (#431711)

        You're an ass aristarchus, there's no point in providing a citation here as it's not broadly applicable to people in other parts of the world. They should do their own research for the laws in their area.

        Also, you're a fucking moron, if you aren't aware that loud guns scare away the game. You miss with a rifle and you've probably scared most of the game away from you. Miss with a cross bow and the game might not even notice that you shot at them.