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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.”
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gauauu on Monday November 21 2016, @03:39PM
Hearing protection means you can't hear some idiot kid and his dog (I live in a hunting state and everyone knows unless you're a hunter you GTFO of the woods during gun season)
This attitude drives me crazy. The woods do not exclusively belong to hunters.
I live in a hunting state also. My family owns a bit of wooded land. We post no hunting signs, because we want to be able to safely take walks in our own woods that we own. Hunters routinely ignore the signs and hunt on our land. THEY are the ones who are being unsafe by hunting on woods posted no hunting. THEY are the ones with lethal weapons. The fact that the kid inconveniences your hunting doesn't mean that he's an idiot when he legally and peacefully uses the land.
(I'm not opposed to hunters in general. Our family has hunters as well. I'm just opposed to the idea that the hunters have full reign to the woods during hunting season, and everyone else has to change their habits to suit them)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 21 2016, @09:11PM
Well that's a mix of problems, some dude wandering around property with a gun is highly likely to get shot, hunting season or no. Depends on your local laws. Also quite illegal even if they had no gun. Things get weirder with duck hunting and the DNR owns all surface of lakes so technically people can legally fire shotguns at ducks right under your bedroom window if your house is close enough to the lakeshore. Probably depends on individual state law of course.
One way to look at is is the odds of getting hit are pretty low but someone gets hit every season so taking the risk is unwise.
Also I suppose it depends on state but out DNR "defuses" the situation kinda by doing all kinds of shared access in parks, so you can fly model aircraft and drones but only certain weekends, and a theater troop takes over the park a couple times a year. So letting the hunters take over the trails for the early winter is I suppose annoying but its "normal-ish" for people to share.
(Score: 1) by gauauu on Tuesday November 22 2016, @03:21PM
some dude wandering around property with a gun is highly likely to get shot, hunting season or no
While I agree with the general idea of your post, this part isn't really true. If a man with a hunting rifle came on our family land, I wouldn't view him as threatening, just as a nuisance. People aren't likely to freak out and shoot someone just because they have a hunting rifle. In rural sub-cultures, carrying a gun just isn't considered scary or threatening, it's just something people do.
But in the small city where I live now, if a man came on my property with a gun, I'd be immediately calling the cops. It all depends on your location and sub-culture.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 22 2016, @04:42PM
And even the decade. Just a couple decades ago even rural it would be "whatever" but now I think it would be assumed the guys on meth and at best merely wants to steal copper pipes and whatever to get the next fix, at worst, well its gonna be pretty bad.
And of course the difference between wearing hunter orange vs a ski mask, the difference between walks out of the woods and says hi vs sneaks up on you in the dark, etc etc
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @06:28AM
Well, if they are carrying a Bushmaster, best to pop 'em off first, and ask questions later. This is how you tell a hunter from a gun-nut survivalist ammo-sexual who probably wants to rape you and your livestock. Can't be too careful these days. Lots of Trump voters think they can roam the woods doing the open carry thing, even on private property. And the cops are only minutes away, but if you have a silencer, you don't even need to bother law enforcement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:24AM
Fuck you cunt.
We voted Trump so bitches like you would be gotten rid of.