Suppressor provision in 'One Big Beautiful Bill' has anti-gun lawmakers lying loudly

Anti-gun politicians in Washington, D.C., must be getting nervous that provisions to remove unnecessary suppressor regulations — or at least the punitive tax that’s required to buy one — are getting close to reality. You can tell by how loudly they lie about suppressors.

Gun control lawmakers are cranking up the volume on their opposition to removing onerous regulations on suppressors — and the rhetoric is astoundingly without merit. Put another way, it lacks facts. Or more bluntly, these politicians are straight out lying.

Like many things on Capitol Hill, when facts aren’t on your side, you just say it louder in hopes of drowning out the truth.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed provisions in H.R.1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” that would remove suppressors from the National Firearms Act (NFA) but continue to regulate them like a firearm under the Gun Control Act (GCA) as they are now. That provision would eliminate the need for duplicative background checks, submission by the purchaser of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Form 4, fingerprints, photos, notification of a chief law enforcement officer, and payment of a $200 tax stamp requirement. That’s all been proposed in previous legislation called the Hearing Protection Act, introduced by U.S. Rep. Ben Cline (R-Virginia) as H.R.404 and U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) as S.364. Both bills are supported by NSSF.

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This isn’t a foregone conclusion, though. The bill’s provision has to survive the “Byrd Bath,” a rule named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) that limits the contents of reconciliation bills to prevent major legislation that does not directly affect the federal budget.

That’s why the House passed another provision in H.R.1 that reduces the tax stamp to $0 from $200.

Removing suppressors from the NFA has gun control politicians howling.

Sen. Chris Murphy

Among the loudest voices is Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), who posted to X, “A hidden provision of the bill…wait for it…legalizes gun silencers!! What?? So now criminals will be able to hide their crimes and police will lose the ability to respond to mass shootings. WTF.” He followed that up by also posting a speech, saying “silencers” will allow murderers to commit crimes in secret, claiming the firearm report would be completely silenced, “Silencers are the tools of killers, they are the tools of criminals, period, stop.”

That’s a lie.

Suppressors don’t completely silence a firearm. They only reduce the firearm’s report from a level that causes instant and irreversible hearing damage to a safe hearing level. That’s about 165 decibels (or louder than a jet taking off) reduced 30-35 decibels (the sound of a jackhammer).

Sen. Murphy’s claim that suppressors would result in increased mass shootings because guns are “silenced” is false. In May 2019, a deranged murderer used a suppressor in his crimes in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Witnesses said, “We kept hearing gunshots,” according to The Washington Post. That was a tragic event, but despite it, Sen. Murphy’s claim that suppressors are the “tools of criminals” falls flat.

Sen. Chuck Schumer

Sen. Murphy wasn’t alone in his uninformed hysteria. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) couldn’t help himself.

“Who wants a silencer? Not the average citizen,” Sen. Schumer said in a speech. “They’re law-abiding. Not our police officers. They’re against these provisions that allow anyone to get a silencer. The only people who want silencers are criminals because they don’t want people to hear their bad, horrible, deadly deeds.”

Suppressors are legal to own in 42 states (including in Sen. Murphy’s Connecticut) and legal for hunting in 41 states. Lawful suppressor ownership has increased exponentially in recent years, with an NSSF study finding a 265% surge in annual suppressor registrations. As of Dec. 31, 2024, there are more than 4.5 million suppressors registered and an estimated 3.14 million suppressors belong to consumers — a number that has only grown in the past six months as application processing times have dramatically gone down.

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In another study looking at the criminal misuse of suppressors in California and nationwide between 1995 and 2005, there were just 153 federal criminal cases involving suppressors, only 15 of which involved the actual use of the suppressor in the commission of a crime. Less than 0.1% of homicides in federal court, an infinitesimally low 0.00006% of felonies in California and a mere 0.1% of armed robberies involved a suppressor. Suppressed firearms are clearly not the choice for criminals.

That’s why Ronald Turk, former acting ATF deputy director, recommended in a 2017 White Paper that “Given the lack of criminality associated with silencers, it is reasonable to conclude that they should not be viewed as a threat to public safety necessitating NFA classification, and should be considered for reclassification under the GCA.”

Sen. Mark Kelly

Gun control senators weren’t done, however. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) claimed that suppressors would effectively negate “ShotSpotter” gunfire detection systems used by law enforcement in cities to triangulate gunfire for responding police.

“These silencers circumvent that system,” Sen. Kelly argued. “That system will no longer be effective when a gunman has a silencer.”

That’s just untrue. Sen. Kelly knows better, but he doesn’t let facts — or ShotSpotter’s own fact sheets — get in the way of his gun control narrative. ShotSpotter’s fact sheet debunks his lie.

“The ShotSpotter sensors are designed to pick up the sound of gunfire from suppressors, but it does make it more challenging,” reads SoundThinking’s fact sheet, the company that owns ShotSpotter.

ShotSpotter CEO Raph Clark dismissed these concerns in 2017 in a Washington Post column.

The facts don’t lie. But anti-gun politicians do. And they’re doing so more loudly now than ever.

Republished with permission from NSSF.