LAS VEGAS — Industry firearm professionals and gun organization officials believe firearms silencers are the next big gun issue coming down the pipeline.
Josh Waldron, CEO of Silencer Co., told The Daily Caller Tuesday at SHOT Show that it is much more difficult to get a suppressor than to get a firearm. “Suppressors are the most regulated consumer product, probably, in the in the United States,” said Waldron.
However, in 180 days, as a result of the Obama administration’s executive actions on National Firearms Act trusts, consumers will be able to purchase gun suppressors without needing the sign off of the chief law enforcement officer from the county they live in.
Instead, FBI background checks as well as fingerprints and photo IDs will be required. This new rule will not only apply to purchases of gun suppressors but also fully automatic weapons, short-barreled rifles or a short-barreled shotguns.
“It’s still a lengthy process, but now we don’t have a problem where some sheriffs wouldn’t sign, because they are not pro second amendment. Some guys didn’t want the responsibility so they refused to sign,” Waldron said. “So that was a big reason why people used trusts. It was because you didn’t need to get that signature, but now with trusts you do have to do fingerprints and photo IDs. So it was kind of a give-and-take from the industry.”
In preparation for the rule change Waldron’s Silencer Co. is pushing out a new campaign to explain to the public why law abiding gun owners would use silencers, a concept that tends to be unknown to most people outside the gun industry.
“The fight the noise campaign is a grassroots effort to change the way people really view silencers or suppressors. It’s an education campaign just as much as its an advocacy campaign,” said Waldron. “Basically we want to have a paradigm shift, so that when someone sees a suppressor they think of hearing protection and not of what Hollywood wants to portray, because that’s not what it really is.”
“It’s hearing protection. And the biggest thing is, if you think about it, if you’re wearing your hearing protection, whether your ear muffs or ear plugs, you can’t hear your surroundings when you’re hunting so hunters don’t use them when they’re hunting. So it’s really a hearing loss problem that that all hunters [come across],” Waldron noted, adding that his own dog went deaf.
“You train these dogs to go out with you and they’re right next to you and they’re right by your side and you’re constantly shooting and nobody thinks about the dog’s hearing. You spend all that time and effort to train these dogs and then they go deaf. They’re basically useless for hunting,” he said.
Waldron said the suppressor issue has not received any political pushback and 30 pro-suppressor bills passed different state legislatures in the past four years. He views gun suppressors as a bipartisan safety product as opposed to what an assassin may use to take out a target.
“Silencers are not what people think they are. They’re not as quiet as people think they are, and there just hasn’t been a problem on the books, so there just hasn’t been a reason, because they are [going to be] easier to buy,” Waldron explained.
“You just have to do a background check. We’re not all of a sudden going to have spike or a rash of violent crimes committed with silencers, because we haven’t had that in the past,” he added.
