Maybe it occurred to you, but it never really occurred to me, until now, that suppressors should be treated as firearm accessories — not as firearms and certainly not as NFA items. The Silencers Helping Us Save Hearing Act, S.1505, would do just that.

Introduced by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) last week the SHUSH Act would eliminate ALL the federal regulations covering the possession, purchase, transfer, etc. of suppressors! That would be huge! That would be even better than the Hearing Protection Act (HPA)!

“Suppressors can make shooting safer for the millions of hunters and sportsmen that exercise their constitutional right to use firearms every year,” Sen. Lee said in a press release.

“The current process for obtaining a suppressor is far too expensive and burdensome. Our bill would remove these unnecessary federal regulations and make it easier for firearms users to protect themselves,” he added.

Under the Hearing Protection Act suppressors would be removed from the NFA naughty list — no $200 Tax Stamp, no registration, no reams of paperwork — but they would still be restricted like firearms. In other words, purchasers would have to pass a background check from a licensed gun dealer or FFL.

Under the SHUSH Act, suppressors would not only be removed from the NFA list, but they would also NOT be treated as firearms. That’s right. No FFL needed. No background check needed. Buying suppressors would be just like buying any other firearm accessory, e.g. new grips or new sights or lasers or lights.

“By properly classifying suppressors as a firearm accessory, our bill would allow sportsmen to have better access to hearing protection and preserve the hearing of sportsmen, gun owners and those who live near shooting ranges,” Sen. Crapo said.

This is genius! This needs to happen! It makes perfect sense. After all, a suppressor is not a lethal weapon. It’s just a sound mitigating accessory. And if common sense wasn’t enough of a reason to support this bill, just consider how pissed off it makes the anti-gun lobby.

“Two weeks after the Alexandria shooting forced gun lobby-backed congressmen to shelve a proposal that would enable dangerous people to buy firearm silencers, two more-gun lobby-backed U.S. Senators are introducing an even more radical bill in the U.S. Senate — just as Congress jets out of town,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety in a press release.

“This dangerous legislation would strip away all federal silencer laws and make it legal under federal law for convicted felons and domestic abusers to buy silencers as easily as they could buy a cell phone or an iPad,” continued Feinblatt. “For the gun lobby, this isn’t a hearing protection issue, it’s a profit protection issue. They want to sell firearm silencers to the masses, even at the expense of public safety. In the wrong hands, firearm silencers create new public safety risks. The loud and distinctive noise that a gun makes is one of its most important safety features: when people hear a gun shot, they know to run, hide, protect themselves or notify law enforcement.”

A version of the SHUSH Act has also been introduced in the House, H.R.3139. The real question is whether this will catch on much in the same way the HPA has, which now has over 150 co-sponsors. I guess that’s where we come in, right? I think it’s time we start contacting our respective representatives and senators. Time to tell them to SHUSH! That is, support SHUSH!

Silencers Helping Us Save Hearing Act of 2017 by Senator Mike Lee on Scribd