One of the two main priorities for gun rights advocates (along with national concealed carry reciprocity) under the Trump administration has been passage of the Hearing Protection Act; removing suppressors from National Firearms Act regulation, delays and fees. The HPA seemed to be the easier bill to pass, low-hanging legislative fruit as it were. But it’s been almost five months – five whole months! – since inauguration and we’ve heard little about any legislative progress on the issue. Until now.

The House Committee on Natural Resources will hold a hearing tomorrow on the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreation Enhancement Act. Sounds like a snoozer, right? Not so much any more. And that’s because the bill now includes virtually all of the the HPA’s most important provisions.

Cue the requisite media hysteria:

One year since the deadly Pulse Nightclub shooting that killed 49 people in a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, House Republicans are considering a bill that could make firearms even deadlier. On Wednesday, House Republicans will hold a hearing on the Sportsmen’s Heritage And Recreational Enhancement — or SHARE — Act, a relatively noncontroversial bill that deals with federal land laws. But buried in the Republican version of the bill is a provision that would remove certain key regulations on gun silencers, devices that mute the sound of gunfire. Advocates say that the legislation would make it easier for dangerous people to purchase silencers by removing background check requirements and that it would destroy existing federal records of silencer purchases.

Yes, well those “advocates” are the same people who have been braying about road rage shoot-outs and blood running in the streets as gun control laws have fallen in state after state. We’ve moved from the bad old days of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and Clinton’s “assault weapons” ban to today’s world of 50-state concealed carry and 13 states with constitutional carry and more on the way…all while violent crime rates have fallen to historic lows.

Here’s the American Suppressor Association’s press release: