Liberals Wanted "Gun Reform" And They're Going To Get It

Just hours after Republican candidate Donald Trump won what many are calling the greatest upset in U.S. Presidential history in large part to the efforts of the National Rifle Association and the nation’s 110+ million gun owners, the NRA is signaling that reforming federal gun laws is a high priority.

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The tweet from the NRA Blog’s Twitter account may seem innocuous enough as a link to an article on the history of suppressors, but it wouldn’t be wrong to read more into that; the Hearing Protection Act of 2015 is the focus of the”Fight the Noise” campaign is to effectively pull suppressors out of the National Firearms Act of 1934. Instead of having to pay an absurd $200 tax and waiting the better part of a year to be approved for what is nothing more or less than a muffler for your gun (indeed, Hiram Percy Maxim invented the car muffler and gun muffler concurrently), you’ll be able to buy a silencer without paying a punitive tax or absurd delays for a baffled metal can.

Gun control supporters, of course, are attempting to claim that this will lead to blood in the streets, again, still.

While the bill continues to gain support and attention, not all of it is positive. The Violence Policy Center issued a report on February 11th classifying gun silencers as ‘a threat to public safety’ in response to HR 3799.

“Silencers are military-bred accessories that make it easier for criminals to take innocent lives,” VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand said in a statement. “Even though silencers are currently difficult for private citizens to obtain, they have already been used in horrific crimes. Elected officials should stand up to the gun industry’s craven attempt to make silencers more easily available.”

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Of course, silencers were not “military-bred” as the NRA’s article on their history made perfectly clear. They were used by hunters and target shooters decades before they were ever used to any significant extent by the U.S. military. They were banned in 1934 due to fears that poachers would decimate game populations by poaching to feed their families during the Great Depression.

We’re currently working on developing a list of probable gun rights reforms that President Trump and his Republican Senate and House will address beginning in 2017, with a right-leaning Supreme Court.

It’s going to be a very interesting ride.

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