Our friends at the American Suppressor Association bring us some state-by-state legislation updates:

California 

On Tuesday, January 9, 2018, the California Senate Public Safety Committee heard S.B. 710, a bill seeking to legalize suppressor ownership and hunting in California. Unfortunately, even after informative testimony by the ASA, the committee failed to pass the bill in a 3-2-2 vote with two republicans and one democrat voting in favor of the bill. Two democrats voted against, and two abstained.The ASA is working on language for a new, slightly modified bill in California for the current legislative session and continuing our process of education and advocacy on behalf of gun owners in California.

Maine
On Tuesday, February 20, the Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife unanimously advanced a bill to remove the sunset provision on hunting with a suppressor in the state, which will otherwise expire on August 1, 2018. This legislation has the support of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. We are working directly with Rep. Stephen Wood (R-57) to ensure that hunting with a suppressor in Maine becomes a permanent fixture. Should it pass, a special permit will still be required to hunt with a suppressor in Maine.

Nebraska
LB780 a proposed bill in Nebraska to ban bump stocks and suppressors has drawn significant opposition. The ASA submitted written testimony to the Judiciary Committee opposing the ban on suppressors. Since that hearing, the original bill sponsor, Patty Pansing Brooks, has offered an amendment to remove the ban on suppressors. As of this writing, the amendment has not been incorporated into the bill. The ASA will continue to monitor this bill in Nebraska.

Vermont
On Tuesday, February 20, ASA Executive Director Knox Williams was in Vermont to testify in the House Committee on Natural Resources, Fish, and Wildlife in support of House Bill 31. Following the hearing, Williams, along with Brent Miller of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), hosted a suppressor demonstration for the Vermont Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus, and officers of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. Sponsored by Rep. Patrick Brennan (R-Chittenden) and Rep. George Till (D-Chittenden), H.31 seeks to legalize hunting with suppressors in the state of Vermont – one of just two states where suppressor ownership is legal but suppressor hunting is not. In 2015, the ASA was instrumental in legalizing suppressor ownership in Vermont with the passage of House Bill 5.

You can join the American Suppressor Association and help them fight the good fight by clicking here.

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22 COMMENTS

  1. Right now I’ll be happy if we stave of an semi auto rifle / pistol and STANDARD cap Mag ban.

    • No. No more holding patterns. We must always push for more if we want change. Use the commie’s playbook against them. Holding the line means at best we are left with a raft of unconstitutional laws, and therefore we still lose. Fight to win, or surrender and die.

      • This. Best defense is a good offense.
        Btw, if no state is to be left behind, what about Illinois?

        • And meanwhile in Montana, I hunt freely with my suppressors. Shoot freely with my suppressors. And generally enjoy gun life…at 50 below zero and angry huge animals around every corner, and no culture, art or music, and especially no more room for immigrants, especially from California.

        • “And generally enjoy gun life…at 50 below zero and angry huge animals around every corner,…”

          Yes, I imagine the frustrations of finding female companionship in that weather must be excruciating… 🙂

  2. Nice they aren’t leaving California behind… But mounting supressors would be interesting in CA, I don’t think you can have threaded barrels even on pistols. Maybe they could standardize a California pinned or integrated muzzle brake for pistols and pinned brakes for rifles, as to gun controllers, flash hiders are more scary than brakes.

    A brake must slow down a bullet to non-lethal velocities, while also micro stamping a serial number on it, while flash hiders, even in the name, are hiding bullets from the law, cloaking cold blooded gunmen in stealthy secrecy. Dreadful, good thing most AWB bills ban those flash hiders!

  3. No suppressor deregulation for you, quit your pipe dreaming. Shoulda focused on the SBR rule, its the weakest link in the NFA. You can’t justify an SBR prohibition in a society that allows pistol ownership. Shoulda got something done instead of getting nothing done.

      • There is effectively *zero* money for wall construction in that turd.

        That pisses me off. About as much as eating the ‘Fix-NICs’ shit sandwich with no carry reciprocy

        Mostly turd. I understand the military did fairly well with funding, including keeping the ground-pounder’s favorite CAS aircraft, the A-10, flying into the 2030s…

    • Nope, shoulda held fast on those ‘stupid’ bump stocks that are going to be used to justify banning ALL semi-autos. There’s no more hand-holds on the slippery slope, we’re basically at the bottom.

      Gun people are so irredeemably retarded. Somehow, the brainiacs think that if they give the anti’s an easy win, it will somehow use up their resources and cause them to pause their efforts. In reality, it emboldens them & their supporters, so they get a ton of donations, resources, and converts as a reward for their gains (meanwhile, more of our side says ‘fuck it’ to the useless counterproductive efforts of the NRA).

      Next time, we’re stuck defending the policy item we sought to distract from by ceding the ‘bump stock’ or whathaveyou. Well, I say next time, but I should really say “the final time.” After they allow the next mass shooting in one of their undefended liberal strongholds by telling the police to stand back & wait while known dangerous turds go nuts, they will push to ban all semi-automatic rifles, or even all semi-automatic firearms (well, or some impossibly small mag cap like five rounds). The NRA has justified the argument that “rapid fire should be banned” so the logical consequence will be the end of all semi-autos.

      At that point, there is no longer any rational justification for the second amendment. Without semi-autos, there is no credible deterrent to government or military overreach, no defense against rebellion, no analogue to martial readiness, nor even credible use for self-defense outside the home. Additional laws will quickly pass to ‘mop up’ anything even close to usefully effective (revolvers, pump actions, lever guns) as was seen in every other nation that banned semi-autos.

  4. California bans threaded barrels for pistols, so even if they made silencers legal, you couldn’t mount them to a handgun! Now I could be wrong, but I beleive threaded barrels on rifles do not have to have a pinned muzzle device unless the device is necessary to meet the minimum overall length requirement of 30″ for the rifle and 16″ for the barrel.

    • I’m sure if a market made it worth while someone could come up with something for handguns that could mount onto a pistol without threads.

      Perhaps something like a pistol barrel with a built in tri-lug integrated onto the barrel while the supressor has some kinda adapter for a tri-lug that also supports a piston?

      • You are correct Mark. Sub 16″ barrels with pined/welded flash hiders making the overall length over 16″ are legal. But anything hovering around the 16″ mark is asking for trouble.

        Usual a flash hider/ muzzle brake only adds 2-2.5 inches so a 14-14.5 barrel with such a pined and welded muzzle device will do the trick. but never remove it or swap it out or you risk being Randy Weavered by the fibs.

  5. So is abstaining basically voting no in the commitee? It makes no sense that it failed with more in favor than against.

    • I don’t know all the ins and outs of California’s legislature but usually committees are set up with an odd number of people and a majority of the total is required to win. So, 3-2-2 means it’s a seven person committee that probably needs four votes one way or another to pass/not pass. Failure to get to four means something fails to pass.

      This is why those quorum rules are so important in a lot of cases.

      • In which case, yes, abstaining is the same as voting no… sorta like a pocket veto.

        But then they can go back to their voters and play both sides.

  7. I don’t want to hear about suppressors until the bill to take suppressors off the nfa is back in the mix.

  9. Repeal the nfa ?? Good idea but better repeal the atf and all other fed owned goverment !!

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