Silencers have been regulated since 1934, and are one of the few accessories regulated by the National Firearms Act. As Zaitchik writes, a $200 fee was required to buy or transfer ownership of a silencer. In 1934, that was enough money to effectively ban these things. As with many regulations unpopular with giant industries (like the 1872 Mining Act), powerful lobbies have prevented that fee from increasing in the last seven decades.
Despite the low cost, writes Zaitchik, by licensing silencers and tracking and taxing their exchange, the government has "kept them from flooding the market like so many other military-market gun accessories with cameos in recent massacres and serial sniper attacks."
According to Ladd Everitt, of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence: "Simple licensing requirements weeds out both blatant criminals and a certain kind of stockpiling insurrectionist who refuses to engage with the federal government. The law has been effective."
As quoted in Zaitchik's article, the explanation goes like this:
"Billions of dollars are spent every year in our healthcare system for hearing loss conditions, such as shooting-related tinnitus," explained the NRA. It was a very important point that had long been overlooked in the gun control debate; because if there is a single pressing gun safety issue in America today, it is the hearing, comfort and convenience of recreational shooters who find orange earplugs unsightly. The NRA is also extremely concerned about the fright children may receive from shooting or standing near the reports of high-caliber weapons. These jolts could have a lasting and detrimental developmental impact, possibly imbuing America's impressionable and tender young brains with the notion that guns are loud, dangerous things. The NRA firmly believes that American freedom is best served by giving 9mm gunfire the feel and sound of a toy cap gun. As the NRA's Lacey Biles put it during last April's Dallas Silencer Shoot, silencers are good for "getting younger folks involved [in guns]. They're less afraid of the loud bang."
Is it about children, freedom, or selling products by any means necessary? by By Julie Kertesz from Paris neighbourhood, France (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
So maybe the NRA could lobby the Obama administration to get a provision for silencers added to everyone's Obamacare coverage? I'm waiting for a call-back from Lil Wayne on line two.
Now, this being America, it's not just about health care, it's about selling products, and American firearm manufacturers would be selling cluster bombs and surface-to-air missiles if they didn't require so much shelf space.
Now, most of us are familiar with silencers primarily from seeing them in films and TV shows, being used by Mafia hit men, spies and commandos. Or, as Zaitchik puts it: "The same qualities that make silencers the accessory of choice for targeted assassination offer advantages to the armed psychopath set on indiscriminate mass murder."
One point that Zaitchik's fine article did not quite zoom in on, and perhaps it's only because it's too obvious: By pushing for legalization of an accessory which, by itself, does no harm, the NRA may have been gambling that their efforts would help create more of a sense of urgency for its cause. Because, for the first four years of the Obama administration, not a single action or word from the White House could reasonably be construed as having anything remotely to do with gun control. Yet by pushing the deregulation of silencers, if any resistance was encountered whatsoever, they could say, "See? We told you so. They want to take away your guns, your silencers, your bayonets, your GI Joe, your Davy Crockett buck knife and coonskin hat..."
It's the government. They want your hat. by screen shot from FurHatStore.com
(See more coonskin cap riffs in my "Escape to Civil War Land" story in this space.)
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