Although no one can stop you from buying a Glock, an AR-15, or similar weapon of mass destruction, you will find that buying a silencer for that weapon is not so easy. If fact, believe it or not , you are not allowed to buy a silencer at all unless the local sheriff or chief of police approves the purchase. And LE casts a dim eye on silencer sales bc silencers make police detection of gun violence that more difficult and the assumption mob hitmen are the major users of these devices. So silencer approval applications are not exactly on the fast track in most LE offices.
But there’s a loophole- if you buy the silencer through a trust, you don’t need LE approval at all. (Remember the Machine gun Kelly Widows and Orphans Trust?). I’m whining about a very minor problem, you say? Maybe not. In Texas, where the best looking P&R Board posters live, there are a phenomenal 70,000 registered silencers. In Austin, there is even a dedicated silencer store – the Silencer Shop. This shop sells a million dollars a month in silencers. Think about that for a minute. He has sales of $1,000,000 a month just in selling silencers. 80% of his buyers are “gun trusts.” But Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition-no more. The ATF has finally gotten off its ass and is proposing a new rule to require gun trusts to get LE approval and undergo background checks before they buy a silencer. Why would a law abiding citizen need a silencer? Let’s ask the usual suspects. Defense of the home? No, you don’t need a silencer for that. Defense on the street ? Ditto. There is no reason that outweighs the ease of killing without immediate detection that a silencer affords. “We oppose the proposed rule requiring LE approval and background checks for purchasers of silencers,” said NRA president I.M. Fulschitt. “Our members like to listen to the radio when thy are out shooting and need silencers to keep the racket down.” NRA spokesman M.E. Scheisskoff helpfully added that “wearing ear muffs is too much trouble for our members. They need to use silencers to protect their hearing.” Fortunately, the ATF and anyone who has watched the Sopranos disagree. Goodbye to that $1,000,000 in monthly sales in Austin. My hope is he goes bankrupt and the Silencer Shop is replaced by the “Puppies and Kittens Store.if you consider that use of a firearm with a silencer in a violent crime comes with a manditory 30 year federal sentence and that silencer crimes are prosecuted roughly 30 times a yr, many are just unlawful possession crimes. I don't see it as a way to end gun violence but you really don't need them. I can understand sport/competition shooters wanting them to protect their hearing maybe but can't see many other reasons for having one.
Subsonic rounds will quiet a gun shot almost as well as a silencer if you are just looking for quiet firearms without a 30 yr sentence.
I never realized that trusts could buy them without permits.
...and if that store is REALLY selling a million dollars worth a month, we'd be seeing a lot more convictions if they were being used illegally. They are an unnecessary expense for street criminals.
People will buy one of these just because it's "cool" to have one. They see them in the movies and want one of their own.
but rather they could buy without a background check and approval from the local LE officer.
I don't really know the full regulatory framework but I think some kind of permit is issued but from the gun dealer, not local law enforcement. Maybe Willy will chime in with some insight on how it currently works.
But Spades aren't you staggered at the sheer number of silencers being sold if the article is correct?
"He now sells close to $1 million of the sound-suppressing devices each month from his Austin, Texas-based Silencer Shop."
One store in Austin has $1,000,000 in sales? Go to any store in your mall but the Apple Store and they would give anything for that kind of sales figure.
In fact , it is so high, I don't believe it.
I guess I'm not sure how many companies even make and sell them to the public. If its only a few I can understand 1 million a month. Maybe a good portion are LE or private security firms. Good quality silencers will run you 3-5 times the cost of a firearm I believe. I don't see many street criminals spending upwards of $1200-$3500 for one. I don't know who's buying them.... But seriously doubt it's gang members ect.
Realistically if you had a metal lathe and a drill press and knew how to cut threads you could make them in a garage. Much simpler than a firearm.
I don't really know the full regulatory framework but I think some kind of permit is issued but from the gun dealer, not local law enforcement. Maybe Willy will chime in with some insight on how it currently works.
But Spades aren't you staggered at the sheer number of silencers being sold if the article is correct?
"He now sells close to $1 million of the sound-suppressing devices each month from his Austin, Texas-based Silencer Shop."
One store in Austin has $1,000,000 in sales? Go to any store in your mall but the Apple Store and they would give anything for that kind of sales figure.
In fact , it is so high, I don't believe it.
Your info is a little wrong here, Mari. 1) they're really called suppressors. I'm not the world's best expert on the subject, but basically, suppressors reduce muzzle flash (which in low light, can be blinding for the guy firing the gun), they slow the bullet down, which would make them less likely to keep going after they've hit a target, meaning that suppressors can enhance firearm safety, and suppressors release the hot gasses coming out of a gun slowly, so it will not cause hearing damage to the person firing the gun.
I first noticed that guns were deafeningly loud before I ever held a gun. When I was younger I used to work in a warehouse with a couple former Marines. Great guys, but they were nearly fucking deaf.
Hearing is a very important sense. It's said that musicians have very well trained ears. That they can hear things that average people can't. An audio engineer has to have ears far better trained than a musician. I do audio engineering as a side gig, and so protecting my ears is vitally important.
For this reason, I looked into getting a suppressor. It's fairly straight forward. You have to fill out a lot of irritating paperwork, pay for the suppressor, which costs around $200, and then you gotta pay the taxes on it. Which are $500. Yes, you have to pay a 500 dollar tax on a suppressor.
For this reason, most suppressors are owned by gun ranges, which is why there's the option of buying one via a trust or corporation.
Suppose you think it's a good idea to make it difficult to buy a suppressor. If it were easy, then everyone would get new jobs as hitmen, and before you know it, the sky would fall.
Here's where that argument falls short. It is really damn easy to just make a suppressor. Not that I've ever done it, but it's pretty easy to do.
I've seen people make very highly effective suppressors out of nothing more than automobile oil filters or even nothing more than water bottles, an old towel and some duct tape.
Now, of course, if the ATF catches you doing this, your ass will be behind bars in a hurry, which is more than enough to convince me not to try, but if the point is to keep them out of the hands of hitmen, then maybe we ought to have $500 tax stamps put on oil filters and water bottles too.
You also poo-pooed my concern that anywhere a large group of people are walking around with loaded guns- like in a gun show - there is a serious risk of needless injury from accidental discharges. Gun shows are safe, you assured me. When I posted this news report of 5 gun shows shootings in one day at three different gun shows, you took to the hills. So I will give you one last chance to comment on this.
We don't know how many people are killed with silencers bc - what was the reason- on yes, no one hears when they have been shot and you can't tell by examining the body as far as I know. So of course we don't have hard statistics on this. I do know that Christoper Dorner was captured with a bunch of silencers and Allan Berg was initially believed to have been killed with a silencer. I'm willing to agree silencer killings are probably a rare occurrence, at least as compared to gun show shootings but there is no social utility for this product. Why can't you just wear ear muffs to protect your ears? Every range provides one and you can buy your own.
But what part of the article was wrong? You left out the LE certification but if a silencer qualifies as a NFA silencer the regs do require LE certification for a transfer, unless a trust is the buyer.
Come on Willy, man up to the facts. You have to at least admit a small degree of risk here that silencers will be used for killing, that the harm caused is fatal, and -unlike the automobile, your favorite straw man - no social utility to justify the risk
I wouldn't have much of a problem with only allowing gun ranges to have suppressors. As it is, I don't think many people are willing to go through the hassle required to buy one.
But again, it doesn't address the simple fact that the more strictly you regulate it, the more viable a black market you create for them. I'm telling ya, simple automobile oil filters make for some of the best suppressors. All you need is an adapter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t_pcWPdSDs
As for how dangerous gun shows are, the ATF estimates that there are around 5,000 gun shows per year. I have no idea how often accidental shootings happen at gun shows, but judging from a google search, it's only happened about 6 times.
I'm not exactly a math wiz, but the probability calculator I looked at said that was about 0.001% chance of getting accidentally shot at a gun show, which isn't much different than your risk of getting shot anywhere else.
If someone is shot with a gun that had a suppressor, you would know, assuming the bullet didn't hit bone. I'm certainly no forensics expert, but my understanding is that the suppressor certainly would leave a signature on a fired round.
Suppressors certainly do have a utility, they dampen the deafening noise from a gun. In a house, this could be so deafening as it could cause disorientation. You may not always have access to ear muffs, especially in, say, a home invasion, and disorientation is certainly not desirable when you need to act to save your own life.
Furthermore, they really do slow down bullets quite a bit. One of the biggest concerns with firearm self-defense is having a bullet exit someone you intended to hit, and then keep traveling, and hitting an innocent bystander. A slower bullet would be far less likely to do this.