(Photo provided by Shutterstock/Guy J. Sagi)
June 16, 2025
By David Codrea, Politics Field Editor
[Author’s Note: This article is being written as developments and new circumstances unknown at this time are still unfolding.]
“Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will fight to strike a provision making gun silencers more easily accessible from the GOP's ‘big, beautiful bill,’” Axios is reporting . He intends to stop the House’s provision to “remove… silencers from the National Firearms Act, scrapping a $200 customer and manufacturer tax on firearm silencers and wiping out federal registration requirements.”
Schumer is fraudulently arguing that “removing silencers from the National Firearm Act violates the requirement that provisions in the bill be budget related,” and if he succeeds, that will sink it in the “Byrd bath,” named for the late Democrat (and Ku Klux Klan) leader Robert Byrd. To liven up the show he’s “rally[ing] gun violence victims and gun advocacy groups … to oppose the measure,” meaning, unsurprisingly, it’s typical gun-grabber sleight of mind designed to overwhelm critical thinking and appeal to emotion. Of course, eliminating a tax is budget related. So, unsurprisingly, gun prohibitionists resort to doing what they do best: Lie.
60 House Democrats , chafing because they couldn’t stop it in their chamber, have made the same argument as Schumer in a letter to Mike Crapo, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, and Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. They knew that wouldn’t work, but it’s a media move, designed to fuel scare tactic propaganda so that polls will “prove” Americans agree with them. The uninformed/ignorant ones who can be spooked by serial deceptions about “silencers” clearly do.
Advertisement
And the deceptions don’t stop there. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was wringing her hands on X.com, wailing that removing silencers from the NFA will “make it easier for ANYONE—violent criminals included—to get their hands on one of these dangerous silencers,” despite the fact that they would still be regulated by the Gun Control Act of 1968 and nothing has changed that would authorize prohibited persons to obtain them and commit more crimes.
“Mass murderers use silencers so their targeted victims can't hear the gun shots, and they can kill more people who don't flee when the shooting begins,” Sen. Chris Murphy absurdly claimed in an orchestrated presser flanked by Schumer, Gabby Giffords’ husband Sen. Mark Kelly, and a gaggle of useful idiots from Giffords, Brady, and Moms Demand Action. “That's why we MUST stop the Republican effort to pad the profits of the gun industry by ending background checks on silencers.”
Warren and Murphy offer but two representative examples. Pick any prominent Democrat in politics and you could no doubt come up with more hyperbole, more hysterics, and more flat-out lies, or we could just come to terms with a measured statement grounded in reality.
Advertisement
“If suppressors are removed from the NFA, existing records of suppressors in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record (NFRTR) will be destroyed,” Knox Williams, President & Executive Director of the American Suppressor Association told Firearms News in response to a question about procedural changes to be expected. “18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(3) specifies that you can't sell any firearms other that rifles and shotguns to consumers outside the state in which they reside,” he replied to another query, and when asked about foreign trade added “I believe import/export of commercial suppressors will have to be fixed separately. That is something we've actively worked on for quite some time and hope to fix it in the near future.”
“Law-abiding Americans should have never been taxed for a safety device that helps prevent irreversible damage to one of their senses while exercising their constitutional rights,” Williams stressed. “It's time to remove suppressors from the yoke of the punitive NFA tax scheme once and for all!”
Forgetting Something?
All this emphasis on suppressors and it’s fair to ask: What about short-barreled firearms? Wasn’t it supposed to be a package deal?
Of the majors, Gun Owners of America (GunOwners.org) is loudly pushing for inclusion of the “Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today (SHORT) Act, which would eliminate the unconstitutional National Firearms Act (NFA) tax and registry requirements for short-barreled rifles and shotguns,” in addition to the suppressor change.
“In a post praising the suppressor language, Gun Owners of America called on its supporters to ask the Senate to deregulate these other types of firearms as well,” MeatEater.com notes in its analysis. “The NRA did not make a similar call in their statement on the bill, which could be due to the other point of conflict: it’s unclear if the Senate will be allowed to deregulate suppressors as part of its reconciliation process.”
It could be, but that doesn’t mean you don’t ask and make your expectations known to people who owe their seats of power to mobilized members. Otherwise, you’re just giving them cover to try for as little as they can get away with.
Does all this seem unnecessarily complicated to you?
“Why is this all being done via the budget reconciliation process?” a gun owner who knows perfectly well what the words “shall not be infringed” mean might ask. Hey, why would you even need standalone bills to remove silencers and short barrel firearms from an NFA that wouldn’t even exist if the Second Amendment were observed by those who swear oaths to support the Constitution?
We deal with where we are, and as things stand, per the legislation tracking website Govtrack, the Hearing Protection Act offered on its own only has a “2%” chance of being enacted, and the SHORT Act ( “Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today”) is given a “0%” prognosis. By including such measures in the reconciliation bill, which works on a straight majority and can’t be filibustered, the hope is Democrats will want spending they can horse trade for badly enough to concede on the gun measures (and that gun owners will feel good enough about what they’re getting to concede on the crippling debt it will take to get the bill agreed to by both parties).
Besides, what will Democrats really be giving up?
Because suppressors are illegal in states where they rule, including, per a simple Google AI search, “California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, [and] the District of Columbia… While suppressors are legal to own in Connecticut and Vermont, they are prohibited for hunting purposes in these states.” Nothing about the budget bill will change that.
As for short-barreled firearms, querying for which states they are illegal in shows similar results, with the Big Three, California, New York, and Illinois, topping the list, with regulations so strict that “civilian” ownership is effectively blocked.
A World of Difference
“Why are some foreign countries less restrictive on suppressors and short barrel firearms than many ‘blue states’?” is a fair question to ask. While ownership is not unregulated, and mandatory prior restraints are imposed, including licensing with attendant approval requirements, registration, and usage requirements (e.g., for hunting), the fact is citizens in several other nations are allowed to own items denied to millions of Americans in the land of the Second Amendment.
“In many European countries, silencers (also called suppressors or sound moderators) are permitted for hunting and sport shooting, and are sometimes even considered a standard accessory. However, the specific regulations and ease of access vary significantly between countries. For example, in some countries like Finland and Norway, silencers are relatively easy to acquire for licensed firearm owners, while in others, like Italy, they are restricted to government agencies,” Google’s AI overview reports. Among the listed “countries where silencers are generally permitted for certain uses” are the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and surprisingly, the UK, where “Silencers are treated as controlled components and require an entry on the owner's firearms license.” Regarding the UK, known for its extremely restricted gun ownership, deer hunters are actually encouraged by the government to hunt with suppressors installed in order to not disturb livestock on nearby farms. Even before the Russian invasion, licensed Ukrainian gun owners could (and still can) buy rifle suppressors over the counter to protect their hearing.
Just when you thought it was not possible to make Chris Murphy and Elizabeth Warren look even more ridiculous, here comes Europe deeming such devices beneficial and therefore legal.
Similar to silencers, a search reveals “Several countries allow civilian ownership of short-barrel firearms, though regulations vary significantly…” One with regulations that puts Democrat states to shame is Panama, where Money Talks News reported “Short-barreled rifles and shotguns are legal.”
At this writing, what the Senate will do with the “One Big Beautiful Bill” is undecided. Serious gun owner advocates are striving to create enough pressure can on Republicans to add short barrel firearms into the mix with suppressors. And Republicans are looking to Parliamentarian of the Senate Elizabeth MacDonough to make her determination on if such measures will survive the “Byrd bath” or become “Byrd droppings.”
If gun owners do end up with any rollback on restrictions, never discount the chronic persistence of Democrats who lose legislatively to then take a complaint to one of their apparatchik district judges for a nationwide injunction. That, of course, would create a whole new series of hurdles to clear while delayed rights continue to be denied.
This just in (6/16/25) from GOA: Thanks to aggressive advocacy from GOA, and mounting grassroots pressure, the Senate’s version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” now includes full repeal of the $200 NFA tax on:
- Suppressors,
