House Subcommittee Asks Questions About DOJ and Suppressors

Things are up in the air about suppressors and short-barreled long guns right now. Some of us have what I jokingly call a “get out of jail free” card because of our memberships in certain organizations or their affiliates, and can buy suppressors and short-barreled long guns without a Form 4. And not go to prison for it.

But others can’t yet, and they don’t want to join an organization just to exercise their rights, which is fair.

Which has some officials asking questions on people’s behalf. When those officials are on a House subcommittee for oversight of federal law enforcement, well…

Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement Chairman Clay Higgins (R-La.) delivered an opening statement at today’s roundtable titled “Suppressing the Second Amendment: Examining DOJ’s Posture Toward Firearm Suppressors.” In his remarks, Subcommittee Chairman Higgins emphasized that firearm suppressors are designed to reduce the decibel levels of gunshots in order to protect against significant and possibly permanent hearing loss, and also noted that there is no statistical evidence that suggests a link between the use of suppressors and criminal activity. He further stated that the Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to uphold Biden Administration-era policies against suppressors. 

Below are Subcommittee Chairman Higgins’s remarks as delivered:

Today, the Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement convenes a roundtable to examine the federal government’s posture toward firearms suppressors—and to ask why the Department of Justice is still defending a regulatory scheme that Congress has already dismantled. 

Few products in America are as badly misunderstood as the suppressor.

Hollywood has taught Americans that these devices are “silencers,” the tools of assassins and hitmen. 

That is fiction. A suppressor is simply a hearing protection device.

A rifle fired without sound protection registers around 165 decibels—louder than a jet engine, and loud enough to cause immediate and permanent hearing loss.

I speak from experience. I have tremendous hearing loss–about 45 percent in. my left ear and 40 percent, my right ear over the course of my service as a soldier and a police officer and pulling the trigger, sometimes without hearing protection.

 So a rifle fired without sound protection is dangerous simply because of its noise. 

A suppressor reduces that report by roughly 30 to 35 decibels, to about the level of a jackhammer.  

So, still loud, still plainly audible, but less dangerous to the gunowner’s hearing. 

The ATF understands this. The Bureau itself issues suppressors to some of its own agents for their “health and safety.” 

There’s obviously a lot more to the opening remarks, but that’s also all that’s there. There’s no mention of what actually transpired elsewhere, but the truth of the matter is that Rep. Higgins is correct about suppressors. They’re not the murder-death-kill tools Hollywood portrays them as. They just make it so you don’t go deaf while shooting.

The problem is that most lawmakers have never actually studied up on what suppressors do.

For example, Higgins notes that they drop the sound of a gunshot by 30 to 35 decibels. A whisper or leaves rustling is 30 decibels. That’s not exactly what they show in movies, unfortunately. And, to be fair to Hollywood, if they started showing suppressors working like they really do, they’d also have to have a diatribe early in the movie dismissing the film industry’s past portrayals, because without it, everyone would roll their eyes in disbelief.

Yes, really.

Higgins went on to discuss the real ramifications of the registration of suppressors, and how it hits people who are just trying to deal with things like snakes in their yards, but rot in prison because they failed to register it.

That’s not right.

It’s time for the DOJ and Congress to completely remove suppressors and short-barreled long guns from the NFA registry entirely. We never needed this, and we don’t need it now. Let’s go ahead and fix things here and now.

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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