BREAKING! SHUSH Act Introduced to Remove Suppressors From the NFA.
Rep. Mike Cloud (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) have introduced legislation to eliminate the excessive regulations on a common firearm accessory.
Rep. Mike Cloud (R-Texas) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) have introduced legislation to eliminate the excessive regulations on the suppressor, a common firearm accessory.
For pro-freedom patriots, this is all a part of the winning, but for the far left, it will be all about the whining. For Hollywood, it’s always been a fixture of spy movies to show suppressors as near-mythical devices that can make any gun completely silent, along with standard magazines with an endless supply of ammunition. The reality is that there are three sources of noise from a gunshot: the mechanical noise of the gun, the noise of the shot itself, and the breaking of the sound barrier of the bullet. These devices only minimize the noise of the propellent exiting the muzzle, hence the reason they are properly called suppressors and not silencers.
The downside or cost for this modest decrease in decibels is that you have a large tubular contrivance on the end of your barrel that makes it very difficult to conceal. Hollywood usually avoids this terribly inconvenient detail by having its perpetrators carry a suppressor separately, and then surreptitiously screw it on the gun while, amazingly, no one notices.
That kind of fantasy thinking works only in the minds of screenwriters. In the real world, an assassin wouldn’t be able to take a chance on someone not taking notice that he is futzing around with a firearm and a suppressor. He would also know it’s not worth the sound reduction, so he wouldn’t bother.
But now that we’ve got the probable objections from the control-obsessed gun-grabber lobby out of the way, let’s talk about the Silencers Help Us Save Hearing (SHUSH) Act. Full disclosure: During my time in university, I worked in an internship at a company that made silencers, studying how they suppress noise and how this could be mathematically modeled. But these were another type of product.
Braden Langley of Langley Outdoors Academy had a short video on the subject.
He points out that this is the way you beat the left, framing it from health, safety, environmental, and practical considerations.
The companion article from Breitbart notes the many odious steps one must navigate to protect your hearing and detailed the remedies for this quagmire:
[Removing] suppressors from the National Firearms Act (NFA) and Gun Control Act (GCA), treating them as standard firearm accessories.
[Prohibiting] states from imposing taxes or registration requirements on suppressors.
[Ending] the $200 transfer tax and streamlin[ing] the acquisition process for law-abiding Americans.
A press release on the legislation from Senator Lee noted that
despite what Hollywood may lead you to believe, silencers aren’t silent, and they aren’t just for secret agents. They are a vital tool for hearing protection for countless marksmen and gun enthusiasts across America, and making them prohibitively difficult to obtain is an assault on the 2nd Amendment. The SHUSH Act eliminates federal regulation of silencers and treats them as the non-lethal accessory that they are.
“Suppressors are a vital tool for responsible gun owners that protect hearing, enhance safety, and reduce firearm noise — but thanks to Hollywood and federal overreach, they’ve been unfairly vilified,” said Congressman Cloud. “Law-abiding Americans shouldn’t have to endure months of red tape and pay an additional tax just to access a safety accessory.
As we noted, suppressors merely reduce some of the noise from a firearm, but they do not make it silent, as leftist gun controllers and Hollywood would like you to believe.
As Mike McDaniel noted, the science is on the side of liberty:
Sound suppressors are mechanical devices attached to the barrel of a firearm designed to reduce harmful impulse noise of firearms at its source. CDC research has shown that “The only potentially effective noise control method to reduce [shooters’] noise exposure from gunfire is through the use of noise suppressors that can be attached to the end of the gun barrel.” Suppressors reduce muzzle blast noise by up to 30 dB. Their benefit is additive when used with ear-level hearing protection devices such as circumaural muffs or ear plugs. The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery endorses the use of firearm suppressors as an effective method of reducing the risk of hearing loss, especially when used in conjunction with conventional hearing protective measures.
The side of the political spectrum obsessed with control will still try to assert that protecting hearing or the environment isn’t worth the risk based on Hollywood mythology. It’s time to point out that this is sheer nonsense and that this type of hearing protection makes practical sense from a physical health and an environmental standpoint.
Originally published on the American Thinker
I own (legally) a couple of sound suppressors. I enjoy target shooting, including the science and mechanics of loading my own ammunition to achieve a more accurate shot. I’m not a street criminal or vigilante and I don’t hunt and shoot animals. Creating an accurate round to shoot accurately at great distances is a hobby. Wearing noise canceling headphones, paired with my firearm suppressors had afforded me to maintain a superior level of hearing in my 70’s. It’s sad that so much misapplication of a process and requirement is driven by the ‘make believe’ TV/movie industry.
Hollywood using “silencers on revolvers is pretty funny. I spent 40 years in law enforcement and for the first half of my career, ear muffs, ear plugs etc were not used or even recommended. We didn’t know the damage we caused to our hearing. I have 60+% hearing loss, as do many of my retired peers. Noise suppressors would have helped, I think.