Illinois State Representative Brandon Phelps has sponsored a bill which would repeal the ban on silencers in the Land of Lincoln and allow them to be used while hunting, to boot. What are the odds that Democrat Phelps’ bill will pass, allowing more people access to a bit of common sense firearm safety equipment? Hard to say, but probably less than the chances that a news outlet could run a story on the subject without including some feckless non-sequitur from an anti-rights organization . . .

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg, said gun owners want silencers for a simple reason: to avoid hearing loss. “There are a lot of veterans, a lot of hunters and shooters, who have suffered hearing loss,” Phelps said…. Mark Walsh, campaign director for the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said Illinois has about 1,000 deaths annually from gunshots, including homicides and suicides. “Adding silencers to that mix, I think is a bad policy,” Walsh said. “It’s a bill that we would be opposed to.”

For the life of me, I can’t imagine why anyone has a serious objection to the ownership of silencers. In notorously gun-squeamish places like continental Europe or the UK, silencers are considered to be…good manners.

This Democrat from Illinois has a good idea, said not many people ever in the history of the world. I’m sure this bill can use all the calls to Land o’ Lincoln legislators it can get in order to get it on Governor Rauner’s desk for a signature.