Since the National Firearms Act was passed in 1934, suppressors, which are a popular hearing protection device used by law-abiding gun owners, have been subject to burdensome registration regulations and a hefty tax price tag that some say infringes on the Second Amendment. The House of Representatives’ version of the Big Beautiful Bill, however, could change that.
Republicans in the lower chamber sought to effectively deregulate the noise muffling device by adding a Reduction of Excise Tax on Firearms Silencers section to their reconciliation legislation. Demand for suppressors has nearly doubled in recent years.
The fate of the bill, which also declares that “there shall be levied, collected, and paid on firearms transferred a tax at the rate of $0 for each firearm transferred in the case of a silencer,” remains unknown until the Senate takes up the Big Beautiful Bill, but could prove historic if it manages to pass the upper chamber.
“Even if it passed exactly as it did in the House, it would represent, likely, the most important victory for the Second Amendment community in the federal legislature in at least 20 years, you could argue in the last 40 years, you could argue ever, because gun control legislation has tended to be a one-way ratchet,” American Suppressor Association General Counsel Michael Williams told The Federalist.
Suppressors would still be subject to the 4473 paperwork and NICS background check required for any firearm purchase from a federally licensed firearm dealer, because they are still classified as firearms under the Gun Control Act.
Those who are cleared to purchase them, however, will no longer have to undergo the cumbersome process of submitting fingerprints, a photo, and Form 4 to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), in addition to paying the $200 tax stamp required to leave a gun store with the hearing protection device.
Currently, most buyers find that it takes around 10 days to clear that red tape, but the ATF warns that it could take closer to two months. Once buyers secure their suppressor, they must keep their approval form and tax stamp with it to provide proof of ownership.
A last-minute amendment inspired by section two of the Hearing Protection Act also guaranteed that suppressors will be declassified as a type of “firearm” that requires addition to the National Firearms Registry.
According to Williams, this amendment would “just remove them from the NFA entirely. And in case that doesn’t work, the backup is included there, which is pulling the tax down to $0 and then keeping that Form 4 a National Firearms Act process.”
Democrats often invoke suppressors when pushing to enact Second Amendment-infringing gun control.
“Silencers make mass shootings worse, more deadly,” Democrat Rep. Gabe Amo of Rhode Island claimed. “They make it harder for victims and law enforcement to locate the source of the shooting. What is beautiful about that?”
The U.S. Concealed Carry Association notes, however, that “silencers are so rarely used in violent crimes that it is hard to find meaningful statistics on them.” As of 2017, more than 1.3 million Americans were clocked as owning suppressors. Yet only about 0.003 percent of those suppressors were used in violent crimes.
Most people purchasing suppressors do so with the intent of reducing the decibel damage gunshots can have on human hearing. Calling the muffling cans that attach to firearm barrels “silencers” often leads people to believe that they cancel out all of the noise associated with a trigger pull. While suppressors don’t entirely dampen the loudness of gunshots, they do reduce the sound by 20-35 decibels. Even with a suppressor, gunshots can range anywhere from 110-150 decibels, the equivalent of anything from a jackhammer to a jet takeoff.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
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