After 82 years, a bill to remove firearm suppressors from National Firearms Act looks like it will finally be approved with Trump in office. The National Firearms Act was primarily designed to eliminate the private ownership of handguns. 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. The bill has not made much progress with a slim Republican majority in the Senate and an almost certain veto from Obama.
With Donald Trump in office and a majority Republican House and Senate, things are looking promising. The bill is likely to return to the next Congress with a new directive. The Hearing Protection Act will pass. It only needs to be presented to Congress and signed by President Trump. Knox Williams, president of the American Suppressor Association, the industry trade group for the devices said, “Imagine for a second that we lived in a world where you had to pay a $200 tax to buy a pair of earplugs. 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.”
Suppressor ownership totals more than 900,000 across the country, an all time high. Vermont, Iowa and Minnesota have recently legalized suppressor ownership for civilians, bringing the total to 42. Williams said, “The Hearing Protection Act is about one thing: giving the law abiding citizens of our country the ability to protect their hearing while exercising their right to hunt and recreationaly shoot without the onerous burden that the National Firearms Act places on suppressors.”
Utah-based SilencerCo CEO Josh Waldron said, “It’s a really important bill, but we’re doing it for education. We’re getting it queued up so that when we do have someone in the White House that’s not a looney tune, it’ll go through quickly and that’s really what we’re doing. We’re setting this up for success in the future.”
Williams cautiously concluded, “In politics, there are no certainties. That said, we are encouraged and excited about the prospect of working with the new Congress to get the Hearing Protection Act passed, and signed into law by President Trump. For 82 years, the NFA has reigned supreme. Now is time to work together to ensure that future generations no longer have to sacrifice their hearing by exercising their Second Amendment rights.”
[revad2]
