Everytown’s Suppressor Hysterics Downright Hysterical

The term “hysterical” comes from the word “hysteria.” It’s meant to convey the kind of laughter someone engages in when they’re completely out of their minds, either temporarily or permanently, though we now use it just to signify something is really, really funny.

See? We’re an educational website.

Anyway, about hysteria and hysterical things. Cam talked about Brady’s hysteria yesterday. I’m not going to talk about that again. Instead, let’s talk about Everytown for Gun Safety in America. They’re good at hysteria. It’s their stock and trade, if we’re being honest.

Yet even for them, their hysteria over suppressors is some next-level stuff.

Bottom Line: Silencers pose a significant danger in the wrong hands, making it harder for bystanders or law enforcement to identify and react quickly to gunshots. In an active shooter situation, for example, hearing and recognizing a gunshot can be a matter of life and death. But radical legislation—misleadingly called the “Hearing Protection Act,” and now part of the SHARE Act—would make it easy for criminals to obtain silencers by removing silencers from the National Firearms Act (NFA). The NFA has kept silencers out of criminal hands for over eighty years, without blocking access for law-abiding citizens. The gun lobby presents this legislation as an attempt to protect shooters’ hearing, but silencers are not the most effective or the safest way to do so. Widely available ear protection products work better than silencers to protect hearing and safety—which is why the U.S. military relies on them, not silencers, to protect soldiers’ hearing. Lawmakers should join law enforcement officers and major law enforcement organizations in rejecting the Hearing Protection Act and the gun lobby’s dangerous pursuit of profit over safety.

The Hearing Protection Act would enable felons, domestic abusers, and other people with dangerous histories to buy silencers with no background check whatsoever.

• The NFA, which was passed in 1934 to fight organized crime, requires all buyers of silencers, machine guns, and other especially dangerous weapons to pass criminal background checks and comply with other common-sense safety provisions.
• The legislation would strip this requirement for silencers. And — for the first time in 80 years — felons, domestic abusers, and people with dangerous mental illnesses would be able to buy silencers with no background check, simply by finding an unlicensed seller.
• Removing silencers from the NFA would undermine the law’s success in keeping the public, and law enforcement officers, safe from crime. Research shows the use of silenced firearms in crime is rare, demonstrating the NFA works to keep silencers out of the wrong hands.

First, let’s address the validity of their claim that ear protection is better at protecting hearing than suppressors. That’s absolutely true. While some suppressors work well enough, you don’t need hearing protection at the range, many don’t.

But this isn’t just about the shooter’s hearing. It also helps minimize the damage to anyone else at the range who might have had their ear muffs off or their earplugs out when someone fires a weapon. It’s also good for protecting the hearing of family members during a defensive gun use scenario that takes place inside the home.

It minimizes the annoyance of neighbors who live near gun ranges and can go a very long way to normalizing relationships between those neighbors and the ranges.

While ear protection might be the best, it’s not always there when you need it.

And that doesn’t get into flash suppression or anything like that, which the anti-gunners either ignore or pretend that’s a sign of criminality.

Now, let’s talk about the supposed fact that now, dangerous people can get suppressors. To that, I say, “So what?”

Suppressors are nothing more than expensive bludgeoning devices without a gun to attach them to. If gun control works so well, then what does it matter if people can get suppressors? If it works, they won’t have guns to attach them to, right?

“But we know people still get guns,” they’d likely reply, which is true. They still will.

To that, I simply point out that if they can get guns without gun control stopping them, then they’ll get suppressors if they want them, too. Luigi Magione allegedly had a 3D-printed suppressor that he used in his alleged assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. He didn’t go through the NFA hurdles to get it, yet he had it.

In other words, as we’ve said repeatedly, all the law does is keep law-abiding people from going through the hassle of having something that is, ultimately, a safety device.

The hysteria on display is downright hysterical.