The Hearing Protection Act has been attached to the SHARE act, which is a sportsman’s omnibus bill, and what a glorious omnibus it is. Of the important things the SHARE act does:

Eliminates the sporting purposes language from GCA ’68 and the law on armor piercing ammunition.

Creates a blanket exception for shotguns to prevent arbitrary reclassification as destructive devices.

Moves silencers/suppressors from Title II to Title I (no longer an NFA item).

Preempts states from playing games to discourage silencers but does not outright prevent states from banning them. (limited preemption)

Enhances the FOPA language to include travel by means other than vehicles.

Creates remedies against states that violate the safe travel provisions, including a cause of action and attorneys fees.

A bunch of hunting related shit I don’t really care about.

One concern I do have with the enhanced safe travel provision is that while it does cover ammunition and firearms, does not cover ammunition feeding devices or other accessories. If this bill passes, it will make suppressors Title I, which means they will become more common and more widely transported. Ten states still ban them even after this becomes law. About the same number of states have some kind of restriction on ammunition feeding devices. FOPA safe travel won’t do us much good if we can still be arrested for magazines and accessories.

The antis are quickly trying to get word out that they are now supposed to oppose the SHARE act, and not the HPA anymore. The attachment of HPA to a bill that should be easier to pass suggests that perhaps the GOP is a bit more serious about actually passing this, if they can pass anything.

I’ve been blogging for ten years, and this bill would constitute winning on a number of things we’ve been fighting for that whole time, including things I didn’t think would be politically possible ten years ago.