2A Groups Urge Congress to Pass Full Hearing Protection Act

While a move to zero out the $200 tax on suppressors has initial approval on Capitol Hill, Second Amendment advocates stress there is still a lot of work to be done.

Following a marathon overnight markup battle from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, the nearly 400-page reconciliation package approved in a party-line vote by the House Ways and Means Committee included a section that dropped the long-standing $200 tax on suppressors to $0.

The bill now goes to the House Budget Committee for further consideration before heading to the House floor. That, argue NFA reformers, allows another chance to drop the regulation that would remain even if the tax remained zeroed out.

“Now, we call on the full House to do the right thing by inserting Section 2 of the Hearing Protection Act to permanently remove suppressors from the unconstitutional NFA tax scheme,”  stressed Knox Williams, president and executive director of the American Suppressor Association. “We have every confidence House leadership will deliver on decades-long promises to stand up for the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.”

Even the NRA, which for years resisted suppressor deregulation in the past, is calling on its members to reach out to the Congressional switchboard. 

“Before final passage of this important legislation, the U.S. House has the opportunity to improve this provision to fully remove suppressors from the NFA,” said the group in a statement. “This provision, along with any other provision in the bill, could be altered or removed at any time before final passage of the bill.”

Advocates point out that the registration mechanism and red tape – not the tax – that come with NFA regulation are the most onerous parts of the current strict controls on the sound moderating devices. Leaving the process intact retains an artificial barrier to acquiring a suppressor, has a negligible impact on crime as ersatz, illegally made suppressors are easy to produce, and a bait-and-switch of simply dropping the tax can easily be undone by future reconciliation bills.

Colion Noir had a good take on the issue in the below piece of video advocacy.

“They’re not doing this because it’s better for us. They’re doing it because it keeps control in their hands. This isn’t about safety, it never was. This is about setting precedent because if they remove suppressors from the NFA today, tomorrow, we’ll ask, ‘why are SBRs still there,’ then after that, ‘why is the NFA even a thing at all.’

That’s what terrifies them. Not the hardware. The idea that we might reclaim authority over our own rights. And I don’t care who’s in office. Republicans, Democrats, bureaucrats with pin collections and zero range time, if you’re in government, the last thing you want to give up is power– and I know it.

That’s why they’ll toss you a $0 fee like a bone and act like they did you a favor because they think you’ll settle for scraps instead of demanding the whole meal.”

As for where Guns.com stands: