“When I need expertise and calm, rational advice on firearms and accessories I look to New Yorkers for solutions,” said no one ever.

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), representatives from law enforcement, and gun violence prevention advocates today vowed to block an effort currently underway in Congress to make it easier for criminals to obtain gun silencers. Gillibrand said she would fight against legislation introduced earlier this year in the Senate (S.59) and House of Representatives (H.R. 367) to eliminate gun silencers from the requirements of the National Firearms Act, making it easier for criminals to obtain these deadly weapons, making it harder and more dangerous for law enforcement to catch criminals.

None of the fear-mongering above is true.

The Hearing Protection Act of 2017 does not “easier for criminals to obtain gun silencers.” If Senator Gillibrand (or let’s be honest, her staff) had done any research at all before opposing HPA, she and they would know that if criminals actually wanted silencers, they could make them very easily from common items for less than $30.

https://youtu.be/f-5v2bHwI8I

It simply cannot get much easier to make a silencer, when all you have to do is buy two items and screw them to a third.

If criminals wanted silencers, they’d be ubiquitous. But they aren’t.

They never have been, outside of Hollywood’s fictional world.  Ask any real cops and they’ll tell you that silencers are rarely used in crime. Silencers add considerable length, bulk, and weight to firearms, making them much harder for criminals to conceal from both their victims and police. They simply aren’t practical.

In addition to being impractical for your average hoodlum, silencers are counterproductive to the goal of instilling fear that violent gangs use as a weapon against one another in turf wars. When a gang-banger does a drive-by, the fear and terror he instills in those he targets is even more important than bullets finding flesh. Loud guns instill fear more effectively than something that makes no more noise than a pellet gun.

Criminals have always had easy access to silencers. They’re just counter-productive to their goals, so they don’t use silencers.

Gillibrand is wrong on the facts, and is simply making empty statements that she cannot back up with any data or crime statistics whatsoever.

“Law enforcement already has a hard enough job putting their lives on the line every day to stop gun violence in our communities,” said Senator Gillibrand. “We can’t make it more dangerous and more difficult by making it easier for criminals to obtain deadly gun silencers. These deadly gun silencers pose a huge risk to our enforcement and our communities and I will do everything I can to stop this ill-thought-out legislation that would allow more criminals to get their hands on these dangerous weapons.”

You’ll note that Gillibrand and her allies don’t cite any research, reports, statistics, or data to support her claim that passing the Hearing Protection Act would make it more difficult or dangerous for police officers to do their jobs. She can’t, because her claims are nothing more than fear-mongering and lies.

Criminals don’t want silencers. If they did, they’d be making them very cheaply for a fraction of the cost of the commercial-grade silencers that law-abiding American citizens want to buy to protect their hearing at the range and in the woods during hunting season.

Senator Gillibrand simply hates the idea of Americans restoring their constitutional rights by eliminating a law that time has proven not be not only short-sighted and obsolete, but counterproductive to the health of Americans.

It’s time that she seek out education from professionals, to fix her deep and apparently abiding ignorance.