Don't Get Distracted

Folks, I've seen a lot of chatter from people upset about the President's comment related to suppressors after a reporter's shouted question as he was boarding the plane for Europe and later in an interview with Peirs Morgan. I put his response in the same category as the comment that the press said was a slap at the Duchess of Sussex, Megan Markle, that was nothing of the sort - it's a distraction.  As a friend recently commented on social media, we need the President to keep packing the courts as this is already paying dividends.  The Hearing Protection Act isn't happening with a Democrat led House and less than 60 votes for it in the Senate.  We need to keep our eye on the ball.  The Court is literally the only way gun rights will move forward for the foreseeable future. 

And while we are at it.  Would someone please have Donald Jr. educate his dad on suppressors! 

Governor Northam Calls for Special Session to Take Up Gun Control in Response to Virginia Beach Shooting

The Roanoke Times reports that Gov. Ralph Northam will recall lawmakers to the state Capitol in coming weeks to take up a package of gun-control legislation he said is urgently needed to prevent killings like Friday's mass shooting in Virginia Beach.  In this morning's announcement he said he will call legislators back later this summer.  He will hold a 10:AM news conference that will be available on this blog.

He said in an interview that he wants the Republican-controlled General Assembly to hear from the public about the need for "common-sense" law related to guns and accessories.

Republicans have previously rejected Northam's gun control bills out of hand, but a top GOP lawmaker signaled Monday that he's open to a legislative debate.

Northam's expected announcement comes less than a week after Virginia Beach city employee DeWayne Craddock used two semi-automatic handguns, a silencer and extended ammunition magazines to kill 12 people, all but one them colleagues he had worked with for years, and injure several others. Craddock was then killed in an intense gunbattle with police during which a bullet hit one officer in a bulletproof vest.

Northam's package of bills includes legislation that directly relates to Friday's shooting — including a ban on silencers and high capacity ammunition magazines as well as broadening the ability of local governments to limit guns in city buildings. But Northam said other recent shootings, including the death last month of a 9-year-old girl who was shot at a community cookout in Richmond, are also driving his call for a special session.

Suppressors are currently legal in Virginia, but an individual has to undergo what amounts to a federal anal exam from ATF after paying a $200 tax before a purchase can be completed.  It normally takes at least six months for the process to run it's course.

Some law enforcement told news outlets on Saturday that the suppressor did not necessarily make it easier for the killer to complete his plan and that it was likely his familiarity with the building that allowed him to kill so many.

Contact you legislators now and let them know that you oppose any new restrictions on your rights.

Lawmakers Invited to Capitol Police Shooting Range to Try Firing Gun with a Suppressor

The Hill reports that a South Carolina congressman invited his colleagues to the Capitol Police shooting range to try shooting a firearm with a suppressor.

Duncan’s office said the South Carolina Republican is trying to drum up support for the Duncan-Carter Hearing Protection Act, which would eliminate a federal requirement that firearm silencers, also known as sound suppressors, be registered.

Duncan along with Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) have invited both Democrat and Republican colleagues to join them at the shooting rage in the Rayburn Office Building from 4:30 to 6:30 on Tuesday.

Under Duncan’s proposal, purchasers would only be required to pass a National Instant Criminal Background Check to purchase a silencer – the same background check that’s required when purchasing a gun.

What a great way to be better informed about an issue on which they will hopefully be voting in the near future.  They should also listen to people that understand hearing and what causes hearing loss.

Is the Hearing Protection Act About to Move in Congress?

That is the sense you would get from the number of articles that have surfaced in the past few days.  USA today had this article on Friday, The Hill had this article on Monday, and the Washington Post also had an editorial Monday urging Congress to give a stiff arm to efforts to reform the NFA by removing suppressors from regulation under the law.

First let's take a look at article in The Hill with some history of how we got here:

"The [sound suppressors] were a victim of the success of his marketing," said Knox Williams, president of the American Suppressor Association, which is working with the NRA on this issue. Williams referenced Hiram Percy Maxim, who first used the term in the early 1900s when he invented what he referred to as the Maxim Silencer. The term later caught on with legislators and regulators.
 
"He labeled it as a silent firearm, and people took it for gospel," Williams said of Maxim.

You'll also note that the gun ban lobby wants no part of calling these accessories what they really are - suppressors.

“Focusing on the name distracts people from the real conversation,” Watts said. “They did the same thing with the debate over whether to use the term ‘assault rifles’ or ‘semiautomatic rifles,’ and then the whole conversation shifted to ‘What are we going to call these things?’” 

As NSSF's Larry Keane notes in the article, it's is more accurate to call them suppressors because they don't silence the firearm, they just lower the level of noise.

The USA Today article was about a demonstration for the media at the NRA Range in Fairfax by the American Suppressor Association.

The reporters’ demonstration — including suppressed and unsuppressed shooting with rifles, handguns and a shotgun — was similar to one the groups have been increasingly offering lawmakers as they ramp up pressure to pass the Hearing Protection Act. That bill that would remove silencers from the National Firearms Act, which has regulated silencers along with machine guns for more than 80 years since the days of gangland crime such as Chicago's 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Passage of the bill would mean silencer buyers would no longer have to pay a $200 tax, submit fingerprints and a photograph, notify law enforcement officers and wait about 10 months while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wades through a backlog to process the application and register the weapon. They would still have to pass an instant background check, as they would with any firearm.

Then there is the editorial from the Washington Post:

The Hearing Protection Act’s supporters argue that current strictures harm lawful gun owners by denying them an effective means of muffling dangerous noise. And it’s true: Gunshots are loud, generally louder than the 140-decibel limit for “impulse noises” set by federal occupational safety and health authorities. Audiologists have found that hunters’ risk of significant high-frequency hearing loss increases by seven percent for every five years they hunt. Yet the sound of gunfire also has benefits, health- and safety-wise. The “bang” can signal to bystanders to take cover or help police to locate a threat. Maybe that’s why they say rifles “report.”

To be sure, the noise-reduction devices at issue do not eliminate gun noise; they reduce it by 30 decibels or so, making “suppressor” a more accurate term, and mitigating whatever additional risk the general public might face if the law results in more use of silencers, including unlawful use, as opponents fear. Silencers are almost never used in murders and other crimes under the current restrictive law, but certainly they would be used in more crimes if there were more of them in circulation.

Apparently, the Post editors have never seen a suppressor on a handgun or long gun.  Criminals prefer firearms that are concealable and a suppressor on a handgun almost doubles the size of the firearm, making it difficult to conceal.

I don't know anyone pushing the legislation, from NRA to the American Suppressor Association that says if you have a suppressor you don't need ear protection as the Washington Post and the gun ban group from the Hill article, Americans for Responsible Solutions, infer.  And to the Post's suggestion that we make sure every shooter use ear muffs or foam plugs before we change the law related to suppressors, maybe they should read this article.  But the Post isn't really concerned about the hearing of shooters. They gave it away in the opening of the editorial.  If the NRA is for it, than the Post is going to oppose it.

UPDATE: Last week NSSF hosted the media at Elite Shooting Sports in Manassas.

Sig Sauer's John Hollister on Prospects for Hearing Protection Act

At the NRA Annual Meetings last weekend, John Hollister of the SIG Silencer Team and Michael Bane of The Outdoor Channel talked Suppressors.  During the conversation Bane asked about the prospects for passage of the Hearing Protection Act (HPA).  Hollister said he believes it will pass, but not this year (at the 4:38 mark of the below video).

I had the opportunity to speak with Hollister in the hotel Saturday afternoon and he said he believes it may take several years to pass the HPA but he does believe it will eventually pass.  I told him my fear was if it is not done in the next two years, or at least the next four, our window of opportunity may close due to politics and political changes in Congress or the White House.  He said every gun owner needs to go to the American Suppressor Association web site and complete the form that will send an email to your congressman and senators to support the Duncan-Carter Hearing Protection Act of 2017 (H.R. 367) in the House and the Hearing Protection Act (S.59) in the Senate.  

Frank Miniter: Five Things You Need to Know About Suppressors

Earlier this week, columnist Frank Miniter wrote an article posted on the America's First Freedom web site that was titled "Five Things You Need to Know About Suppressors."  In that article, Miniter starts off by writing:

There is an old joke that the “official NRA handshake” is a person saying “What?” as he or she cups a hand behind one ear.

I never liked this joke, as it makes light of a serious issue. Decades ago many gun owners didn’t think it was a big deal that they didn’t wear earplugs or muffs when hunting and at the range. Many shooters who grew up in that culture now have hearing loss or problems with tinnitus (ringing in their ears). Massive public education—much of it from the NRA—taught us about the dangers of shooting without ear and eye protection.

Miniter goes on to write the five things that people need to know about suppressors, things like the type of technology, and do they really make a gun "whisper quite." But to me, the most important thing he shares is how they work - information you can use when writing to your legislators when the Hearing Protection Act comes up for a vote to encourage them to support it:

The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has determined that a decibel (dB) level greater than 140 can cause permanent hearing loss. Silencerco’s research has estimated that a silenced .22 LR rifle gives off about 116 dBs, a silenced 9mm pistol makes about 125 dBs, a jackhammer about 130 dBs and an unsuppressed .223 rifle about 165 dBs. So suppressors can lower the dB level below the detrimental 140 dB level. But OSHA also says that, over time, anything over 85 dBs can damage hearing. The point is, for the most part, even someone firing a suppressed firearm should still wear hearing protection.

Miniter writes that a bullet moving faster than the speed of sound also creates something called a "mini sonic boom" that suppressors will not eliminate, making the Hollywood myth that silencers or suppressors turn gunshots into a "pffft" noise is "nonsense."

Yesterday Miniter appeared on NRATV's NRANews Cam and Company to talk more about the article.

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Afraid Suppressors Will Defeat Shot Spotter Technology

The gun ban crowd will stop at nothing to make sure the Hearing Protection Act does not make it through Congress and lands on President Trump's desk.  First it was to portray suppressors as they are in movies - as tools of assassins and mobsters.  Now, a Chicago Sun-Times editorial fears they will make newly acquired technology by the Chicago Police Department useless:

Just as Chicago is moving ahead with new technology that could help reduce gunfire deaths, Congress and the Illinois Senate are considering misguided bills that could shoot Chicago’s effort to pieces by making gun silencers easily available.

Chicago’s new technology, called ShotSpotter, alerts police as soon as bullets start flying, instead of making them wait for a phone call. Officers can respond more quickly — sometimes within seconds. By arriving faster, detectives are more likely to find witnesses, and crime scene personnel have a better chance of scooping up evidence, such as shell casings. Victims can get medical care faster. Recently, Chicago’s Public Building Commission voted to spend $938,500 to expand ShotSpotter in the Englewood and Harrison police districts, which are home to most of the city’s gun violence.

And of course the editorial writers go straight to the gun ban lobby for their talking points:

...The Violence Policy Center in Washington says silencers “could help enable mass shooters and other murderers to kill a greater number of victims more efficiently.” A proliferation of silencers would mean more dead innocent people.

We have a window of two years to get real reform on firearm related issues before the next congressional elections. The Hearing Protection Act should be at the top of  the agenda.

Great National Review Article on the Common Sense of Suppressors

Josh Gerlernter has a great article at National Review Online on one piece of commonsense gun legislation President-elect Donald Trump should get behind - making it easier to purchase suppressors.  Gerlernter writes about an interview that Donald Trump Jr. gave to SilencerCo where the Jr. Trump pointed out how laws banning suppressors are a great example of laws written by people who don't know what they are talking about.  Trump said when he shoots in Europe the guns most likely include a suppressor.  That's because European countries understand the safety value of this firearm accessory.  For instance, according to Gerlernter, a Glock 17 without a suppressor registers 160 decibels, which is 10 decibels more than a jet take off at 25 yards, a sound that can rupture your ear drums.

Because gun owners stood with Donald Trump, we should make sure our rights are among the top priorities of the new administration.  Gun owners have a unique opportunity to see some of the biggest gains for our rights if the new president and congress will make these a priority over the next two years.  First on the list should be passage of the Hearing Protection Act.  If it is good enough for Europe, it's good enough for the U.S.