Even the ATF Thinks It���s Stupid that You Can���t Easily Buy a Silencer for Your Gun

It may just be that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has decided it is just too tired to keep running around enforcing laws that provide zero benefit to public safety.

In a recent white paper, Ronald Turk, Associate Deputy Director of the agency, made the case for dropping the regulation of firearms suppressors, better known to the public as ���silencers.���

While silencers have a history in lore of being a tool preferred by murderers, Turk took issue with that perception in his paper, writing:

���In the past several years, opinions about silencers have changed across the United States. Their use to reduce noise at shooting ranges and applications within the sporting and hunting industry are now well recognized. At present, 42 states generally allow silencers to be used for sporting purposes. The wide acceptance of silencers and corresponding changes in state laws have created substantial demand across the country. This surge in demand has caused ATF to have a significant backlog on silencer applications. ATF���s processing time is now approximately 8 months.���

Turk wrote, as well, that ���silencers are very rarely used in criminal shootings. Given the lack of criminality associated with silencers, it is reasonable to conclude that they should not be viewed as a threat to public safety.���

Translation: Special regulations for silencers are stupid, unnecessary, and costly; get rid of them now.

Currently, gun suppressors are subject to the National Firearms Act, which imposes specific and extra firearms regulations on such things as machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and silencers. In order to own any of these, a private citizen must go through an onerous application process and pay significant taxes on the purchases and transfers.    

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large