Good to know. One of the mistakes American legislators made back in the day: taxing the be-Jesus out of suppressors and forcing purchasers to jump through more hoops than a circus tiger. While inflation has made the $200 tax stamp fee seem almost reasonable – no government infringement on Americans right to keep and bear arms is “reasonable” – the bureaucratic BS involved with suppressor purchases remains decidedly dis-incentivizing . . .
Should a Republican take the presidency, removing the barriers to suppressor ownership should be an NRA priority. It would save hundreds of thousands of shooters from permanent hearing damage.
Oh, and muzzles down in the rain boys.
The Federal government will give up revenues like Chuck Heston would give up his guns.
I’m afraid that we’re stuck with the tax until America pays off the national debt and funds all its unfunded mandates. Which should happen during the reign of Queen Dick.
If the money is the issue, the solution is easy.
Make the $200 payable at time of sale and fire the army of ATF clerks.
A conservative candidate can tout that as “shrinking big government”.
Better yet, reduce the tax to $50 and collect it at the point of sale without any delays. That would produce a huge windfall for .gov because tens of millions of people would purchase them.
Oh, and eliminate the salaries of the army of ATF agents as well. (If they want to volunteer their time, let them. Otherwise, let them quit and move on to something productive.)
Yeah, but what politician would ever propose cutting govt jobs, then they’d have all the govt unions against them!
The NRA does not exist to restore gun rights and they will never fight to do that. They exist to push around legislators and tell scary stories to their members. They want member money and they get legislators to either complain or praise their influence, but if we ever got our gun rights totally restored they would be able to do neither of their reason for existing.
Since we will never get our gun rights “totally restored,” I think the NRA is pretty secure no matter how many anti-gun laws get rolled back.
I don’t suspect that the NRA lost many members when Arizona and Kansas went Constitutional Carry.
And yet they still are not taking advantage of their legislative pull to even ask for repeal of the GCA and the NFA.
because the NRA doesn’t act like Don Quixote. We didn’t see these restrictions creep in all at once. and they won;t be taken back all at once. It is the art of the possible not perfection.
if you havn’t noticed we are in a battle for the hearts and minds of the country. One in which those who do not own firearms have a say at the ballot box. on one side you have Bloomberg doing his level best to use every example of gun owner gone wrong to scare the bejesus out of all of them. On the otherside is us, at least most of us wishing to be left alone and to enjoy,use, protect the RKBA.
And somehow you think lifting any regulation on Machine guns and destructive devices is a bill/vote that is going to endear those people in the middle to our position?
Please, leave the strategy to the adults in the room.
Prevent permanent hearing damage to shooters AND hunting dogs.
The cat lobby likes deaf dogs.
🙂
Won’t someone think of the puppies? !
The ridiculousness of the near impossibility to acquire a gun muffler is a perfect example for why compromise on the 2A is unacceptable. Suppressors should never have been restricted as long as they have. Suppresors display how propaganda and lies can override facts. I talked to a manufacturer at a gun show yesterday and he said his brother has waited 1 1/2 years now, still no okay. If licensing comes to firearm ownership we could easily witness similar delays.
Here in NY State a pistol permit is more difficult to get than a suppressor in any state where suppressors are legal. Some counties it is 12-18months and one gentlemen just got his pistol permit 2 weeks ago after a 3 year and 2 month wait total.
If you marry your suppressor do you get a license or a stamp?
My supressor “identifies” as a human female.
Gives a new meaning to ‘baffle strike’ :p
If “strike” is like, labor union strike… “My suppressor has a headache. Again.”
What about the pro-gun Democrat POTUS candidates?
(Just thought I’d give everyone a good laugh)
Numerous commenters on here, pre-2008 election: “Guys, Obama is pro-gun. He promised no new gun control regulations. If you like your guns, you can keep your guns*.”
*Unless they’re black, scary looking, have a shoulder thing that goes up, take a clipazine, or are one of those ghost guns
ehh, he tried to make a funny. If I had enough rum in me, i woulda giggled even. Tho, at that point, I would probably giggle at just about anything. Happy drunk here, my brother just gets really immature, like a naughty 9 yr old with a bunch of water balloons.
Well, if Jim Webb decides to run that would make 1. He’s pretty reliably pro-military (being a former Marine himself and with a son who was with USMC in Iraq) and pro-2A.
I don’t think he’s nearly liberal enough to win the Dem nomination, but people who want a more centrist alternative to Hillary might look his way.
Don’t worry. Inflation will rise to the point to where $200 is less than an hour of minimum wage.
If they were to drop the tax to $25.00, collected by the FFL, have a NICS check and Form 4473 done, they’d have so much tax money flowing in, that they wouldn’t know what to do.
Probably sell 20 million units the first year.
That is actually a reasonable compromise and it would definitely bring in more money. I know the ATF wants to stream line the process of their various forms, and procedures but even with the most gun friendly ATF director they’d still be bound by these insane laws…and seeing as how we can’t seam to even get an ATF director at all (besides interim directors) I can’t imagine this happening soon. But yes treating suppressors like a normal firearm with a flat $25 tax is a step in the right direction
I haven’t read the National Firearms Act in a long time, but the 2 basic elements of it are that NFA items must be registered, and the tax paid, both of which could be accomplished at POS with the present FFL & NICS system, neither of which existed 81 years ago. I doubt there are many people left to give a firsthand account of how easy or difficult it was for a law abiding citizen who actually had the money to acquire a machine gun back in the day.
In 1932-1934 a model 1911 Colt sold for $25.00, a Tommy Gun fetched $225.00, and a Ford Model T was $400.00. The average annual salary was $1368.00. The NFA tax was designed to be punitive and prohibitive from day one.
As much as I’d enjoy owning a machine gun at an affordable price, I just don’t see it happening. I think the best we’ll ever get is the registry being re-opened with a whopping increase in the tax. Adjusted for inflation, it would be around $3600.00. To be able to buy a brand new machine gun for 5-6 grand would be better than it is now, ( I just saw that a bunch of brand new H&R Reising .45 ACP’s have been discovered, and are being offered for $8250.00) but it’s too rich for my blood. Even among Republican lawmakers there’s not a huge amount of support for machine guns being readily available, but getting suppressors and short barreled rifles knocked down would be a huge win, with the possible chance of them being taken off the list completely down the road.
http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/priceguide.html
http://www.autoweapons.com/photosn/photosnov04/reising.html
If they just dropped the paperwork, and left it at $200, I imagine they would make so much money they wouldnt know what to do with it.
^^^This. Lets be generous and make it $50. I would buy 3 today- 556, 308, 45. Same thing for SBRs.
It’s easier to put a condom over the muzzle than to get mud in your bore from carrying muzzle-down.
thats a excellent point, never even crossed my mind. My grandmothers .270 got a swell in the tip of the barrel when she was hunting and got some snow and muck plugged in the end that she didn’t notice. They had a gunsmith lop off the swollen area and re-crown it once they discovered that it was shooting all over the place.
“It’s easier to put a condom over the muzzle than to get mud in your bore from carrying muzzle-down.”
I’ve seen this (well, Hollywood ‘Nam movies) – Is there any risk of blowing out the barrel?
No.
I often use a neater solution, but one which requires a bit of cleaning. I’ll put a bit of cellophane tape over the muzzle.
Getting foreign material in your bore and then lighting it off is worse than a flimsy cover over the muzzle. I’ve seen bores ringed from nothing but a bit of snow jammed into the muzzle.
Talking to people who are relatively neutral on the gun debate in the US (that is to say completely brainwashed by anti-gunners and afraid of guns) they seam to view suppressors as a positive thing. I explain how much damage one gunshot can do to your hear (the sound of course ;D) and they are shocked. Furthermore new shooters are always surprised by how loud it is, heck I don’t shoot a lot and it still surprises me (depending on if its indoor or outdoor). Suppressors don’t belong anywhere in the NFA what so ever, and I know people will say machine guns and SBR’s don’t either but really a suppressor is passive. I think it would be interesting for ranges that are close to urban areas to have “quiet hours” where everyone has to shoot suppressed, maybe the local city that has complaints could subsidize the cost of the suppressors for the range owner. You wouldn’t have to own a suppressor, just have a rifle with the right threads.
Dollar short and a day late…
The uproar is going nowhere, America is decidedly set on destroying itself in much bigger ways. This little thing doesn’t matter.
IMHO it is foolish to think the RepugniCons will do anything contrary to the DemoRats’ agenda.
Toys for middle aged firearms enthusiasts should not be an NRA priority. Yes, I’m aware of the practical benefits of suppressors, all of which add up to about 30% of the purpose of repealing these regulations. The rest is toy factor.
I bet I could list ten other more important, less costly and more attainable reforms the NRA should work for other than suppressors (or SBRs, for that matter.)
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