The Nighthawk GRP Recon is designed to provide shooters with a tactical-grade 1911 capable of accepting weaponlights such as this Surefire X300 Ultra. The .45 ACP pistol shown equipped with a match-grade threaded barrel topped off with a GEMTECH GM-45 suppressor. Read full review.
What’s going on with the Hearing Protection Act???
Good question. Well, we got news this week from the American Suppressor Association that key components of the HPA were being rolled into a larger piece of legislation known as the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act.
The SHARE Act was scheduled to go before the Federal Lands Subcommittee Wednesday — that was until there was a shooting at a GOP congressional baseball practice that left five people wounded, including Congressman Steve Scalise (R-LA), the Majority Whip in the U.S. House of Representatives.
House Natural Resources Federal Lands Subcommittee spokeswoman Molly Block told CNN that the hearing on the SHARE Act will be canceled until further notice.
That stinks, but is understandable.
However, moving forward, when the SHARE Act does go before the subcommittee, it will include under Title XVII, all of the following provisions:
- Sec. 1702: Removing suppressors from the National Firearms Act, subjecting them to the same instant NICS background check as long guns, and issuing a refundable tax credit to anyone who has purchased a suppressor since the HPA’s original date of introduction
- Sec. 1703: Ensuring that suppressors will remain legal in all 42 states where they are currently legal, after suppressors are removed from the National Firearms Act
- Sec. 1704: Preempting states from levying taxes or registration requirements on suppressors. However, this will not make suppressors legal in any state where state law currently prohibits them.
- Sec. 1705: Granting the ATF 365 days to destroy all suppressor related records from the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record (NFRTR)
- Sec. 1706: Developing a “keystone part” definition, and requiring that such keystone part is serialized on every suppressor. This will ensure that individual suppressor parts, like pistons and endcaps, will not require serialization.
- Sec. 1707: Imposing a 10% Pittman-Robertson excise tax on the manufacture of each new suppressor, a tax that is currently imposed on all Title I firearms
Aside from the excise tax, which let’s face it, there’s no chance that goes away, those are all great moves!
“The inclusion of the Hearing Protection Act in the sportsmen’s package highlights the commitment of the Sportsmen’s Caucus to make the hunting and recreational shooting experiences safer and more enjoyable for all,” said Knox Williams, President and Executive Director of the American Suppressor Association.
“We know for a fact that exposure to noise from recreational firearms is one of the leading causes of hearing loss, which is why the CDC, NIOSH, and the National Hearing Conservation Association (NHCA) have all recommended using suppressors as a tool to mitigate the danger,” continued Williams. “We look forward to working with the Sportsmen’s Caucus to make this legislation a reality.”
SEE ALSO: This New York Senator Has Vowed to Kill the Hearing Protection Act
We’ll have to keep a close eye on the progress of the SHARE Act, which in addition to having the HPA language has provisions related to guns, hunting, shooting sports and the outdoors. No doubt it would be a big win for 2A supporters to have it clear Congress and land on president Trump’s desk. But there’s a long, long road ahead and many adversaries standing in its way.
“As Americans mark one year since the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando – the worst mass shooting in our nation’s history – the gun lobby is trying to sneak a dangerous provision through Congress to make it easier for dangerous people to buy silencers,” said a statement from Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Gun Sense in America. “This provision would profit gun manufacturers while making law enforcement’s job more difficult and potentially making mass shootings even more deadly.”
See what I mean? Keep your fingers crossed.
I agree with this gun grabber. There should be no silencers. What ever a silencer is. I know my hearing would be a lot better if I had a suppressor years ago because we all know sometimes we forget to put on our hearing protection.
I’ve been praying and hoping this would finally get going. It’s a major plus for us law biding citizens that have went our whole lives with no trouble. It’s not going to start because the liberals think crime will rise. Anyway criminals are criminals because they don’t and won’t follow the law anyway. If they denied it the criminals would still have them from wherever they get them, make them or whatever. I don’t believe the criminals are worried if their rifle is a 16″ barrel either. We do. We would do nothing to lose the right to buy a surpressor without the long wait. The wait is what turns me away from them. I have a hard time buying something that I have to wait all those months for. I know it’s so worth it. I would have a lot of catching up to do since I own a bunch of rifles in every caliber. Anyway I hope it passes soon. It would do so much for hunting, shooting sports, and self defense in the home which I pray never has to happen. I’m a newly appointed chairman with the NRA in the county where I live in Tennessee and also in my 40’s taking night classes for Guns smithing . I know I have mentioned it to our Senator so much. If they want to put the serial number on it so be it. That doesn’t bother me and at least that way it would separate the legal ones from the bootleg ones. If I have to pass a backround for it just like a firearm so be it. I can pass it . If I can pass for the firearm I surely can pass it for the surpressor.
These a-hat liberal politics don’t even understand what they are talking about, calling a suppressor a “silencer”. Good heavens these are the same SFB candy cane people who dodge military service and decide about weapons based on “how they look”. They couldn’t tell an “assault rifle” from an “AR 15” to save their miserable lives.
Could someone please ensure that those making laws are at least a little educated about what they are doing? Please? Good heavens, we get so many of these smooth talking air-heads in there making rules that by the end of the day we’ll all be doomed.
Just ask the original americans – remember when they were told “give up your weapons, the government will protect you…” Ask Geronimo’s ghost what he thinks about that, neh?
Next we need to also repeal that HUGHES AMENDMENT that Ronald Reagan signed into law banning post 1986 NFA manufactured gun transfers to citizens … More American jobs in the manufacturing of new NFA TRANSFERABLE guns , and especially in the AMMO MANUFACTUTING sector to feed the hungry appetite of NFA guns …… Also, more tax dollars as well as transfer tax stamp fees paid . It’s a win win situation . More jobs for people , more taxes for the government . .
So god I live in TN where I can walk out legally with my suppressor in hand after th NICS check. We passed the HPA back in May. No $200 tax stamp and instant owner of my new suppressor. ! BOOYAH for TN!!
Stupid “auto-correct”. It’s so GLAD
Are you saying that TN enacted some type of Firearms Freedom Act that exempts state residents from federal firearms regulations including the NFA? While that is 100% legal under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, it is not legal in the eyes of the ATF. You have been warned.
No. We have to follow all NFA rules and regulations . Only film autos without a class 3 is Pre ban if someone can afford it. With surpressor or any SBR it’s paperwork and $200 tax stamp plus ATF is so backed up I’ve heard it’s taking 7 to 8months. I live here In TN and we have NFA rules also. We don’t have any mag restrictions like Cali and we can own any semi auto with proper backround check.
The press never seems to notice that shooters like James Hopkinson, Squeaky Fromme, Omar Mateen, Lee Harvey Oswald, Arthur Bremer, and John Hinckley mostly come from the Left. In a list of everyone implicit in a mass shooter, assassination or attempted assassination going back to Leon Czolgosz (who shot President McKinley in 1901), Democrat party members and that party’s social clients make up the preponderance. To keep pushing off passage of the SHARE Act, all the Democrat hard-left have to do is keep abusing guns.
The only real cure for the issue is the publication of facts – such as a list of highly gun-controlled places such as Ireland where, for those who get to use guns for sport, suppressors aren’t just legal but REQUIRED. Such as a full-page ad listing every instance of a murder committed with a legally-owned suppressor in the United States – because empty white space is better than a thousand words. It wouldn’t be cheap for a few people to do this in advertisements, but all of us can do it in comment spaces under stories on the SHARE Act at no cost at all. Let’s get busy,
It’s illegal to have a gun in NY city, so why would you need a silencer? The NY Senator vowed to stop the bill. He can stop it in his state, but why does he have to ruin it for us law abiding citizens.
He can’t ruin it for us. He represents New York. Period.
In ancient Rome, some people worshipped the goddess Cybele. To be a priest of that religion, you had to cut off your own testicles and fling them over the wall of the temple of Cybele. Now, if Mr, Schumer wants to worship Cybele, he can. He just can’t force the rest of us to. And, from the sound of the voice, he seems to have already passed the entrance exam.
Whoops. I didn’t follow the link in the article, and wrongly assumed Chuck “the Schmuck” Schumer was the Senator from New York in question. It was actually the new hoplophobe from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, whose press release was a densely-woven skein of lies. She produced no evidence of assault or murder committed with suppressors to justify keeping them in the NFA for the very good reason that it doesn’t happen outside movies and television programs.
If Sen. Gillibrand wished to try to get Hollyweird to stop portraying suppressors as common instruments of mayhem, she’d have my support, along with a law forcing the movie and TV industry to require people in on-screen gunfights to reload at plausible intervals. But that would be a law correcting an actual wrong on the movie or TV screen.
Sen. Gillibrand obviously believes that citizens ought to be subject to penalties, fines, absurd permit fees and unnecessary regulation to prevent them committing imaginary wrongs in real life – establishing her credentials as a national Democrat.
I truely honestly can’t see how anyone with half a brain lives in New York or most of the New England area states. SO ANTI-gun it’s pathetic!! UN-American !!
They should be legal in all 50 states and we should be able to make our own suppressor.
the libs are trying to shut ranges down because of noise non shooting residents say its to loud even though the moved into the noise that alone is a good reason to pass the bill never mind the shooters loss of hearing I am saying this even though I live in Mass where they are illegal and we will have to get that changed after HPA is passed Federally
Regardless of what side you come down on the whole gun debate, the rhetoric
and nonsense that people like Shannon Watts spew is just sad. it is sad that these individuals will continue to expose their ignorance of fact and truth to advance their agenda.
Not ignorance; just plain lies. They know exactly what they’re saying. They’re intentionally misrepresenting facts to support their rants.
Amen
How much money has everyone given to the Bloomberg and George Soros (Progressive Ins -get the name) funds by using their companies? They are funding these thugs and pushing the buttons of these idiots through their political societies etc. They are a poison in my opinion!!!!!! I m still allowed to have that although the DEMOCRAPs think only they should be allowed to voice their opinions since everyone else are lunatics or decenters. The Left is so far left they can not even see the center when say come over to the center with us and we will meet in the middle (the middle is now socialism to them) a nanny state!! No body that can protect themselves or stand up to the GOVERNMENT when it is wrong, yes it can be wrong at times.
Remember GEICO, too (Obama financier Warren Buffett controls it through Berkshire Hathaway Equities). And Hollywood, which finances all of the Left, and makes like hell for entertainers like Tim Allen who won’t drink the Kool-Aid. The only way to make these folks see the light is to make sure they feel the heat.
Why does a suppressor purchase require a backround check? That makes no sense at all. It also shouldn’t be serialized. It’s a tube that goes on a serialized gun that was purchased with a backround check.
As a retired Chief LEO I have to qualify every year to carry in each and every state and DC. You should have the same right. Not related to suppressors but a general comment
While we all extoll the benefits of and Constitutional rights of the people to own suppressors, the liberal anti-gun politicians and their minion, will undoubtedly throw barriers in the way of passage of this or the HPA bill. Let’s face it, the previous HPA bill died on the vine last year and the current bill has not got out of committee for the last 6 months. It should be a slam dunk with Republicans holding the majority in both houses and a President will to sign it into law, but it too seems to have the same fate as the last bill.
Maybe the SKS “identifies” as an M4/AR15?😉
wtf I live in Rhode Island and suppressors will still be outlawed
Move to the South where normal is actually normal.
Amen , I own 4 suppressors and three SBR’s.
Just in reference to another comment above, the added length of a suppressor could make for awkward handling and the element of surprise to a bad guy in a public shooting scenario. Other than that people with little situational awareness may have a longer response time to shots fired, would it really matter if a bad guy used a suppressors? Bad guys shoot good people unfortunately.
Second thought, suppressors would not only protect shooters, but people who live near, hike near or work near shooting ranges. Though those people aren’t at the high dB levels, it can be unnerving to hear that “crack” of a rifle shot from someone sighting in before hunting season, or a nuisance of listening to an hour of repetitious shots from a grandfather teaching a grandchild safe shooting and the enjoyment of plinking. Shooters are not the only ones who would benefit.
Shannon Watts is a raving, self-serving lunatic.
Naw. She’s just a liar.
I hate to be that conspiracy guy but I wonder who turned this guy’s switch and sent him out to destroy the HPA’s progress buy shooting up the ball game, igniting gun control talks again?
Too, I immediately began hearing talk from other “only ones” that members of the “only ones” club SHOULD be allowed to carry wherever they go, you know, for their safety, because theyre important. One of their members gets killed and a few others get shot at and they deserve protection while theyre outside the green zone. Well, what about the rest of the population who actually have to conduct the business of their lives, every day, outside the green zone? Are they not important?
Im stuck in Maryland right now, on the eastern shore where its supposedly different from the area across the bridge, and at work you should have heard all of the people talking about the guns used in this shooting, the ever evil ar 15. They were saying m 16 but I knew that none of them know anything about guns. 15 seconds on the web, by me, revealed it was actually an SKS and a 9mm handgun that were used. An old Chinese mil-surp rifle with a fixed 10 round mag thats loaded via stripper clips, so, I couldnt wait to get home to take all of my ARs out and tell them it was OK and that it was just because they were black, except the two that are dark bronze and the one little guy who is FDE, they required a special session so Ill take those 3 to the range this weekend and give them some Mk262 to ease their shame.
I felt like a real outsider at work yesterday.
Bill,
Im so glad you mentioned consoling the kids and taking them out to the range. Its very demeaning when everyone attacks the innocent just because of their looks, being black and scary and all…
Two things. We don’t know if the SKS was Chinese. It could have been from one of many countries that made them. The is is being stripper clip fed. I’m guessing it probably had a detachable mag considering the number of rounds he fired in the short time before he was shot. Otherwise, I agree with you. The first article I read said he used an M-4 (military issue only). They don’t know the difference between an M-4, M-16, AR-15, AR-10 or a .22 with a tactical stock.
This was just one of the crazy’s that was helped over the edge by the lying left, a complicit news media, the brainwashed Hollyweird elites, and the bought and paid for violent riots by George Soros and others, Some people are so gullible that it doesn’t take much to make them flip.
“M-16”, huh? I know it won’t help with the chattering classes, but 99.9% of actual M-16s are in the hands of the police and military
What might get a little more traction among your friends is drawing up a little list of mass shooters and assassinations/attempted assassinations in this country. A Democratic party member’s finger was on the trigger in the majority of cases. The most dangerous part of any weapon is the nut operating it.
Exactly !
I can understand where mass shootings cause disruptions, but in any and all mass shootings in U.S. history, has there been one mass shooting where suppressor[s] played a role in the attack? I don’t know, but my guess is that terrorists and madmen want to enhance the panic and fear factor of the attack, Suppressors are generally not used by bad guys. I rant on…
Perhaps the reason is because suppressors have been regulated to the point that criminals cannot obtain them since it would require an investment to get one second hand or paying off an armorer/machinist to build one for them.
Could be wrong though.
No Briguy, Most guns and related products that criminals use are stolen or brought in from other countries through the black market. Criminals don’t care what the legal owners had to pay for something. Besides, you can watch youtube to see how to make one yourself. They are easy and cheap to make.
Shannon Watts is at best misled and at worst a fascist idiot. As a physician I am aware of the risks and benefits of Suppressors. They are not Silencers. They soften the sound to a loud yell instead of a bunch of screams and whistles. Ms. Watts has been so infected with the anti-gun rabies she has lost the ability to digest the truth. This bill will save hearing. It will not allow someone to shoot up a nightclub silently. In fact, just talking about Pulse, Pulse is a failure of FBI Director James Comey, who was the ultimate authority on the sign off to stop monitoring the guy who became the shooter. He had tried to get body armor, as well as an assortment of guns from one store that notified the FBI and the ATF. Both bodies said okay. What greater background check would one want, but if that fails, maybe profiling should be allowed.
Excellent post Doctor.
As a physician myself who owns several cans, I’m not sure what user “risk” there is from a suppressor, other than an accidental burn from touching a hot one or not using a heat shield cover. Only subsonic ammo can be reduced to a “whisper” volume of <100db, but that's neither practical nor available for most calibers. I certainly won't be using subsonic ammo on my upcoming elk hunt. Agree with you about Watts and Comey!
Good point. It’s also worth pointing out that in the Pulse shooting and the Scalise one, the perpetrators were registered Democrats. It really has no statistical significance (the p-values for positive correlation on any study of political violence by any major US political party would be massive) but is highly useful for shutting Democrat party fan boys and girls up.
Where do I go to see comments in favor of the bill from the good guys who have national platforms? All I ever see/hear are platforms afforded to the antis like Shannon Watts and that new female New York Senator. We need to counter their specious arguments with the truth.