I’m not surprised to see the anti-gun forces come out so hard against the Hearing Protection Act. The latest is a group of chief law enforcement officers who apparently think you and I shouldn’t have more convenient access to a safety device. The Law Enforcement Commission for Common Sense (LECCS) recently sent a letter about its opposition to the bill.

I was just glad to see I wasn’t the only one who had never heard of these guys.

Have you heard of the Law Enforcement Commission for Common Sense (LECCS)?

Probably not.  I hadn’t either.  It’s a coalition of active and retired law enforcement “leaders” (another word for “big city elites”) that was assembled by Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly to do the bidding of their anti-gun organization Americans for Responsible Solutions.

Last week, LECCS sent out a letter calling on Congress to oppose the Hearing Protection Act.

“As longtime law enforcement professionals, we have seen the horrific results of dangerous weapons falling into the wrong hands,” LECCS said in the letter.

“The deregulation of firearm silencers through the SHARE Act or the Hearing Protection Act would only make these results more common and often more fatal,” it continued.

A quick look at the letter showed the signatories of the message. A whopping 20 people from all around the country, which is hardly representative of, well…anything. Especially since six are retired officers, meaning they don’t actually represent active officers.

Commissioner John Barbieri, Springfield Police Department, Springfield, MA
Commissioner Charles Ramsey (Ret.), Philadelphia Police Department, Philadelphia PA
Director B. Todd Jones (Ret.), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Sheriff Mike Reese, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, Multnomah County, OR
Sheriff Lupe Valdez, Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, Dallas, TX
Chief Andrew Bidou, Vallejo Police Department, Vallejo, CA
Chief Jim Bueermann (Ret.), President, Police Foundation, Washington, DC
Chief Robert Champagne (Ret.), Peabody Police Department, Peabody, MA
Chief Louis Dekmar, LaGrange Police Department, LaGrange, GA
Chief Ivan Fossen (Ret.), Glenwood Police Department, Glenwood, MN
Chief Michael Gahagan, Caribou Police Department, Caribou, ME
Chief Jeffrey Hadley, Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety, Kalamazoo, MI
Chief Scott Knight, Chaska Police Department, Chaska, MN
Chief Ron Louie (Ret.), Hillsboro Police Department, Hillsboro, OR
Chief Chris Magnus, Tucson Police Department, Tucson, AZ
Chief James Moore, Rocky Mount Police Department, Rocky Mount, NC
Chief Kathleen O’Toole, Seattle Police Department, Seattle, WA
Chief Michael Sauschuck, Portland Police Department, Portland, ME
Chief Paul Schnell, Maplewood Police Department, Maplewood, MN
Chief Henry Stawinski, Prince George’s County Police Department, Prince George’s County, MD

So, the vast majority are from liberal states or liberal cities. Another 30 percent of them are retired officers, meaning they no longer work in the field (fair disclosure: My father is also a retired police chief).

This is a drop in the bucket of law enforcement since there are over 15,000 police departments in the United States (not counting things like campus departments, etc). These officers represent less than 0.1 percent of the departments in the U.S.

In other words, their comments are not necessarily representative of law enforcement as a whole. Big shock, right?

Further, their concerns are nothing more than the result of liberal fear mongering. Suppressor technology has been around for over a century. They can be built in a garage, and videos exist of people using oil filters to fill the role. Yet where are the people using these in crimes?

Oh, yeah, there aren’t.

Suppressors are great in a movie, but they don’t work the way Hollywood would tell you. They’re big, bulky, and don’t create a soundless shot, they simply reduce the sound just enough to help protect your hearing. They’re not terribly convenient for criminal use due to their size, and they’re not nearly as awesome as you’d see in a Bond movie.

You’d think some chief law enforcement officers would understand that, but you’d clearly be disappointed.