Tag Archives: Politics

Hearing Protection Act ‘alive and well’

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Cutaway of the Maxim Model 15 “silencer” on a 1903 mockup.

Since 1934, the federal government has treated devices designed to muffle or suppress the report of firearms as Title II devices that required registration under the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record and mandated transfers that included a $200 tax stamp. The HPA would repeal this requirement and treat suppressors as firearms – which would allow them to be transferred through regular federal firearms license holders to anyone not prohibited from possessing them after the buyer passes an FBI instant background check.

We spoke with industry insiders about the Hearing Protection Act on the eve of the 146th National Rifle Association Annual Meetings and Exhibits in Atlanta last week, who argued the measure has a fighting chance.

More in my column at Guns.com

Some 86,000 surplus M1s could be coming to CMP from the PI

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This is my favorite work of Rafael Desoto. The Garand is great

The Civilian Marksmanship Program advises the Army could soon hand over a large stock of historically significant M1 rifles.

A post on an M1 Garand collectors group on Friday mentioned a group of loaned rifles coming in from the Philippines was being processed by the U.S. Army for shipment back to the states. Mark Johnson, CMP’s chief operating officer, confirmed that a large group of rifles may indeed be headed home and wind up in the organization’s hands.

”There are 86,000 or so M1’s hopefully coming back to the Army,” said Johnson. “We hope to see them in the future.”

More in my column at Guns.com

Could the NICS appeals backlog be next?

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With signs that a historic swell in gun sales and associated background checks may be tapering, the federal government may soon tackle a logjam of denial appeals.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System is currently working voluntary appeals dating back to August 2015 — for individuals denied 18 months ago. However, it hasn’t always been like that. In September 2015, the average delay was three months.

The change came when the nearly 70 examiners dedicated to appeals were reassigned to assist in running initial criminal background checks because of surges in gun sales in October 2015. Since then the delay has grown, despite executive action to expand NICS’s workforce to meet increasingly robust sales figures, leaving appeals to stagnate.

But that could all be changing.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Hearing Protection Act ‘thwips’ past 100 sponsors in the House

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ruger-10-22-rifle-with-armtac-monotube-integral-suppressor-and-hogue-overmold-stock-brand-new-assemblies-975-00

A bill that would remove suppressors and silencers from National Firearm Act regulations is picking up momentum on Capitol Hill.

The Duncan-Carter Hearing Protection Act was introduced by GOP sponsors U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina and Rep. John Carter of Texas last month and aims to deregulate suppressors as a safety measure to help promote their use in protecting hearing. Enrolled as H.R. 367, the measure picked up its 100th co-sponsor last week.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Will Russian AKs and Korean war surplus M1s come ashore post-Trump?

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could-trump-administration-raise-floodgates-on-gun-imports-3-768x510

Some are hopeful the new management in Washington will be able to lift barriers to overseas firearm imports erected over the years, though the going could be slow.

President Donald Trump on Friday said it was “very early” to tell if the United States should lift sanctions on Russia, but that he seeks a “great relationship” with Putin and Russia.

On the campaign trail, Trump’s platform on trade concentrated on American jobs while floating the possibility of a tariff on all imported goods to help ease the current trade deficit. However, the Republican’s position on gun rights promised to curtail federal gun bans and limits. The two concepts, when balanced against one another, leaves open the possibility of action on foreign-made guns currently off-limits to buyers in the U.S.

I talked to industry insiders on both sides of the pond, the ATF, and the International Trade Commission to get the scoop on if bans going back to the 1960s could be reshaped.

More in my column at Guns.com

And you thought Godzilla was bad…

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The “most adaptable animals that you’ll ever find” are running rampant across parts of rural Japan in the wake of the 2011 nuclear catastrophe and strict gun laws aren’t helping.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, in which a boiling water reactor nuclear power plant largely went Chernobyl after a tsunami knocked it offline has left Japan with a host of problems to include radiation-induced health impacts, some 200,000 displaced locals and possible exposure of groundwater to melted down nuclear fuel for decades to come.

Oh yeah, and the wild hogs.

Wild, radioactive boars? Check! 0.6 guns per every 100 Japanese? Check! (Photo: Kyodo/AP via Outside online)

Thousands of wild, radioactive boars? Check! 0.6 guns per every 100 Japanese? Check! (Photo: Kyodo/AP via Outside online)

More in my column at Guns.com.

Get ready for homemade suppressors if HPA passes (but not in every state)

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oil-filter-suppressor

With the possible removal of silencers/suppressors from National Firearms Act control, a number of legal questions around the devices emerge.

The current mechanism for change, H.R.3799 — the Hearing Protection Act — is stuck in the U.S. House but would likely see a stronger reboot in the next Congress in 2017. If a new bill gains enough momentum to make it through Capitol Hill and onto the waiting desk of President Trump, it would leave a few things undecided if signed into law with its current language.

I spoke with Adam Kraut, an attorney specializing in Second Amendment rights and NFA issues in particular, about just what could be in store.

More in my column at Guns.com.

NFA deregulation of suppressors a very real prospect for 2017

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Firing the 03 Springfield with the Maxim silencer, 1910. From left to right Hiram Maxim, Lieut. Col. Richard J. Goodman, and Capt. Earl D Church

Firing the 03 Springfield with the Maxim silencer, 1910. From left to right Hiram Maxim, Lieut. Col. Richard J. Goodman, and Capt. Earl D Church

A Republican trifecta in Washington next year will likely see action on a bill to remove firearm suppressors from National Firearms Act regulation after 82 years.

The Hearing Protection Act was introduced last October by U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., and currently has 78 bipartisan co-sponsors from 34 states. Since then, the HPA has been among the top 10 most-viewed bills on Congress.gov almost every week since it was introduced.

However, with a slim Republican majority in the Senate unable to override a near-certain veto from President Obama, the bill has been in doldrums.

Now, with the White House under new management next year, advocates for the measure feel signs are looking up and will likely return to the next Congress with a fresh mandate.

“Imagine for a second that we lived in a world where you had to pay a $200 tax to buy a pair of earplugs,” Knox Williams, president of the American Suppressor Association, the industry trade group for the devices, told me on Wednesday. “Now, imagine that even after paying that tax you still had to wait 8 months before you could bring your earplugs home with you. As silly as that sounds, it’s the world we live in with suppressors in the NFA.”

Maybe not any more…

(More in my column at Guns.com)

Tom Swift would be pleased

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Starting around the 1880s and progressing through the Great War, or in other words the gaslamp Victorian/Edwardian-era, a series of pulp novels appeared with a host of fictitious “Edisonade” brilliant young inventors: Tom Swift, Frank Reade Jr., Jack Write and others whose adventures were full of pluck and included the high tech forward thinking science of the era including radios, electric weapons, electrical land vehicles, steam powered robots, airships, rockets and submarines.

One of these books, a 1911 work titled Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle, was used as the acronym (TSER) of a less lethal gun that projected a set of barbed hooks that delivered a potent electric charge, incapacitating most targets– the TASER.

taser-came-from-the-acronym-of-a-novel-published-in-1911-titled-thomas-a-swifts-electric-rifle

Incidentally, last week the District of Columbia agreed to lift its prohibition on civilian ownership of Tasers as part of a lawsuit filed in federal court.

In the two-page order, signed by U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, the city agreed not to enforce its current ban on Tasers and other electronic arms for lawful self-defense in residences while lawmakers hammer out a new and more accommodating law.

washington-d-c-reverses-ban-on-tasers-after-court-challenge

When things are so bad that you have to send it to the people

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So in California, which has had an assault weapon ban going all the way back to 1989 and yet still have mass-shootings with California-compliant firearms, lawmakers tried to pass over 20 legislative actions on increased gun control this session.

A baker’s dozen of these made it through the legislature in Dem-heavy votes of which Gov. Jerry Brown signed 7 into law and returned five with vetoes.

Since gun rights groups and Republican lawmakers couldn’t derail these, a group of gun owners on a gun forum (Calguns) got together and decided, “Let’s try for a ballot referendum to repeal these…”

And that’s exactly what they are doing.

With a pressing deadline of Sept.29, they are trying to get 450,000 signatures on 7 different propositions. Of course, California has 13 million gun owners, which by definition should all be capable of registering to vote, so it’s not far-fetched.

I’ve spoken with the man behind the effort, a San Diego tech company executive, and it’s a hail Mary play with a lot of spunk behind it.

More over in my column at Guns.com here and here.

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