WASHINGTON (AP) — The massive tax and spending cuts package that President Donald Trump wants on his desk by July 4 would loosen regulations on gun silencers and certain types of rifles and shotguns, advancing a longtime priority of the gun industry as Republican leaders in the House and Senate try to win enough votes to pass the bill.
If the gun provisions remain in the larger legislation and it is passed, silencers and the short-barrel rifles and shotguns would lose an extra layer of regulation that they are subject to under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. They would still be subject to the same regulations that apply to most other guns — and that includes possible loopholes that allow some gun buyers to avoid background checks when guns are sold privately or online.
Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who supports the legislation, says changes are aimed at helping target shooters and hunters protect their hearing. He argues that the use of silencers in violent crimes is rare. “All it’s ever intended to do is to reduce the report of the firearm to hearing safe levels,” Keane says.
Speaking on the floor before the bill passed the House, Rep. Clyde said the bill restores Second Amendment rights from “over 90 years of draconian taxes.” Clyde said Johnson included his legislation in the larger bill “with the purest of motive.”
“Who asked for it? I asked,” said Clyde, who ultimately voted for the bill after the gun silencer provision was added.
Clyde was responding to Rep. Maxwell Frost, a 28-year-old Florida Democrat, who went to the floor and demanded to know who was responsible for the gun provision. Frost, who was a gun-control activist before being elected to Congress, called himself a member of the “mass shooting generation” and said the bill would help “gun manufacturers make more money off the death of children and our people.”
Among other concerns, control advocates say less regulation for silencers could make it harder for law enforcement to stop an active shooter.
“There’s a reason silencers have been regulated for nearly a century: They make it much harder for law enforcement and bystanders to react quickly to gunshots,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.
Schumer and other Democrats are trying to convince the Senate parliamentarian to drop the language as she reviews the bill for policy provisions that aren’t budget-related.
“Senate Democrats will fight this provision at the parliamentary level and every other level with everything we’ve got,” Schumer said earlier this month.
