Here is a video from Silencer Shop.  This sounds like a nice idea, but at the expense of registering it with the ATF, not so much any more.  You’re free to disagree. I see that they have designed the suppressors with different choke sizes in mind. That answered the only question I had before watching he video: what does this do to the shot pattern? I do wonder what this does to the weight distribution and balance of the gun though.

I find that using shotguns in particular reduces the need for any sort of suppression of the sound because of the comfort of wearing sound enhancing ear muffs (or electronic ear muffs).  They work well with the lower comb of the shotgun and don’t interfere with getting a good cheek weld.

Rifles are a different story.  With rifles the stock doesn’t have the same profile, and this is especially true of modern sporting rifles where the stock is along the same axis as the recoil.  I find that electronic ear muffs do interfere with my cheek weld.  The only option at that point is foam hearing protection for the ear canal.

The upshot of electronic ear muffs for hunting or other shooting sports is that, especially for a person who is somewhat hard of hearing like me, the muffs actually enhance the sound (other than the shot itself).  I damaged my hearing by running power equipment for years before we thought about things like hearing protection. I always use hearing protection now. Thus, the last time I went quail hunting I had a regular conversation with someone with muffs on, and yet suffered no hearing damage from the shotgun.  The downside of foam hearing protection is that no such conversation can be had.

I am a fairly well rounded engineer, and in addition to studying both mechanical and nuclear engineering, I have studied the physics of sound, including all of the OSHA regulations and the dumbed-down ways they force you to compute reduction in decibels (for example, when double protection is used).  OSHA crafts its calculations for the simplest minded health and safety technician to use, not for the engineer.

But those regulations do provide worker protection.  And while it can be said that OSHA has no jurisdiction over hearing safety for those other than workers, if the FedGov cared in the least about the health and safety of its citizens, OSHA would be in front of Congress lobbying for removal of suppressors from the NFA.  Hearing loss is a human safety issue.  There are no two ways about it.

The only conclusion one can reach is that OSHA doesn’t really care about you, any more than the federal government does.  Because you engage in hunting and the other shooting sports, they hate you.  It’s that simple.  If they cared about you, they would have removed suppressors a very long time ago and allowed them to be sold at the local hardware store.

Good Lord!

A communist revolution is well underway, and the DHS is spending resources on this.

Breitbart:

Here are seven reasons why action against suppressors is politically risky:

1. A Suppressor Has Been Used in One Mass Shooting — A suppressor was used on one of the two guns in the Virginia Beach mass shooting. In other words, of all the mass shootings and/or high profile shootings constantly beamed into homes via the establishment media, a suppressor was used in one of them.
2. Police Still Heard the Gun Shots and Moved Toward Them to Find the Gunman — On May 31, Breitbart News reported Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera’s observation that police officers located the Virginia Beach gunman by moving toward the sound of his gun shots.
3. Suppressors Are Not Silencers — The fact that police moved toward the sound of the gunman’s shots, and that witnesses recalled hearing shot after shot, illustrates the fact that suppressors are not silencers. Rather, they are mufflers that remove the dangerous, high pitches associated with a gun shot.
4. Suppressors are Already the Most Highly Regulated Firearm Accessory in America — The acquisition of a suppressor requires the submission of fingerprints and photographs, and an in-depth background check. It requires the would-be buyer to pay a $200 federal tax and to register the suppressor with the government. The process of doing these things takes seven to nine months. The would-be buyer is then allowed to come in and receives a federal tax stamp, showing the suppressor is in the buyer’s name, and the buyer is then allowed to take possession of his suppressor.
5. Suppressor Acquisition Involves Many of the Democrats’ Favorite Gun Controls — As seen in the above paragraph, acquiring a suppressor involves a background check and registration, as well as fingerprinting and photographing the buyer. Yet when these gun controls fail–even in a single instance–Democrats push for more, more, more.
6. Suppressor Ownership is Legal in 42 States — The American Suppressor Association reports that suppressor ownership is legal in 42 states. Many of these states allow use of suppressors in hunting, for the noise-reducing benefits that hunters and the environment gain through suppression use.
7. Smacks of Bump Stock Ban — The fact that suppressors are not silencers; that they have been used in only one mass shooting; that police in that shooting could still hear the gunshots and run toward them; that witnesses could hear the shots and run from them; and that suppressors are legal in 42 states (which only magnifies their infrequent use in crime) is reminiscent of the way bump stocks were banned after they were used only once in a crime. Ironically, the one criminal use of bump stocks, and the criminal use of suppressors, were related in that the accessories were legally purchased both instances, then used against citizens in a situation where the citizens could not shoot back.

This doesn’t even begin to touch the risk he faces, and there may be no way to mitigate the risk even now.

First of all, let me say that if suppressors completely silenced a gun shot, there still wouldn’t be a basis for banning them.  “Shall not be infringed” means what it says, and you and I know it.  I just hate it when people stipulate the high ground to the opposition, inasmuch as admitting that in certain circumstances it just may be a good idea to regulate something-or-other.

Trump has already alienated gun owners with: “Take them first, follow due process later”, his choice of AG, his choice of ATF head, his bump stock ban, and now his statement of hatred for suppressors.  With his bump stock ban he turned more than half a million peaceable men into felons overnight with the stroke of a pen.

He thinks, or he has been told by his idiot advisors, that stunts to appease the Fudds will fix his problems with being a gun control advocate.  His idiot advisors are wrong in the superlative degree, and he will find that out in little more than a year.

But I said that “it wouldn’t surprise me to see a bill pass the House and Senate headed for Trump’s desk to outlaw them completely, something that is no more than a muffler intended to save the hearing of target shooters and sportsmen.”

True to form, when the controllers see an opening and a weakness, they’re waiting to pounce.

Gun silencers like the one used in a recent lethal shooting in Virginia Beach would be banned under legislation that U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey introduced Friday.

The Democrat unveiled the legislation at news conference in Trenton alongside Democratic Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora and representatives from the gun-control group Moms Demand Action.

Well, Mr. 3D-chess is in a pickle now, yes?  He’s gone on record saying that he hates suppressors, and that they are looking at what can be done.  The democrats have the House, and effectively the controllers hold the Senate.  They’ll send him a bill, and you can count on it.  What will he do then?

If he signs it, he will finish the alienation of the balance of the gun control crowd.  There are many more suppressor owners than bump stock owners.  If he doesn’t sign it, he’ll be pointed out as an inauthentic liar.

Does he even care at this point which it is?

Via reader Fred, The Charlotte Observer.

The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to federal regulation of gun silencers Monday, just days after a gunman used one in a shooting rampage that killed 12 people in Virginia.

The justices did not comment in turning away appeals from two Kansas men who were convicted of violating federal law regulating silencers. The men argued that the constitutional right “to keep and bear arms” includes silencers.

The court’s action in the silencer cases was among dozens of orders in pending appeals, including decisions to add an international child custody dispute and four other cases to next term’s docket. The justices also will hear cases dealing with a death row inmate in Arizona, racial discrimination claims against Comcast by an African American owned media company, environmental cleanup at a Superfund site in Montana and a dispute between Intel Corp. and a retired Intel engineer.

In the silencer cases, Kansas and seven other states joined in a court filing urging justices to hear the appeals. The states said the court should affirm that the Second Amendment protects “silencers and other firearms accessories.” The other states are: Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

President Donald Trump’s administration asked the court to stay out of the case and leave the convictions in place.

Shane Cox, owner of a military surplus store, was convicted of making and transferring an unregistered silencer, and customer Jeremy Kettler was convicted of possessing one, all in violation of the 85-year-old National Firearms Act. Both men were sentenced to probation.

As soon as the blood was spilled the controllers came out of the woodwork to shill their ideas.  First up is The Washington Post, or in other words, Jeff Bezos’ and the CIA’s blog.

But details of the rampage include one fact unique to the growing list of active-shooter cases: the assailant used a .45-caliber handgun with extended magazines and a barrel suppressor. This small detail — that the loaded gun was fitted with simple, and lawful, “silencing” equipment — threatens to upend how we understand and train for active-shooter cases in the future.

Let’s stop right there.  I’ve never “trained” for an active shooter situation by learning to “run, hide and fight.”  Only the DHS is stupid enough to purvey such nonsense.

But details of the rampage include one fact unique to the growing list of active-shooter cases: the assailant used a .45-caliber handgun with extended magazines and a barrel suppressor. This small detail — that the loaded gun was fitted with simple, and lawful, “silencing” equipment — threatens to upend how we understand and train for active-shooter cases in the future.

But the Virginia Beach killer seemed to want the anonymity of silence, a tool of the coward, not one seeking fame or a blaze of glory. None of the videos or manifestos we’ve seen from New Zealand to Las Vegas appear to be part of the Virginia Beach story. The killer wanted silence.

Silence is the enemy of time. An entire “run, hide, fight” policy that governs every school, workforce and the first-responder community in active-shooter cases is conditioned on an important premise: that there is situational awareness that shots have been fired, bullets are flying and it’s always best to run the other way. Once you know where the bullets are coming from, you can — as I tell my own kids — “sprint if you can; duck if you can’t; and fight only if you must. I only have one of each of you.”

If she would rather teach her children that than arm defenders around them, she hates her children.  But you see where this is going.  Now the controllers are targeting suppressors.  Next up, USA Today.

It’s not immediately clear how long Friday’s attack lasted, or how much time passed before the first police officers arrived on scene. But some gun control advocates say the suppressor may have caught the victims off guard. One survivor described hearing something that sounded like a nail gun.

“Especially on a handgun, a suppressor will distort the sound in such a way that it would not immediately be recognizable as gunfire to people who sort of know what that sound is,” said David Chipman, a retired agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and now the senior policy adviser with Giffords, a gun-control lobbying group.

Oh, I see.  An “expert.”  It’s always better for your story when you can get an “expert” to weigh in, yes?

But finally, the beloved Donald Trump himself.  Someone baited him with a question about suppressors, and he had this to say.

Q    The suspect in the Virginia Beach shooting used a silencer on his weapon.  Do you believe that silencers should be restricted?

THE PRESIDENT:  I don’t like them at all.

First we had the bump stock ban courtesy of a single, solitary, action by the federal executive remaking federal law on a whim.  Nice precedent, Mr. Trump.  We’ll see that used for very nefarious purposes in the future, no doubt.  Then we had support for red flag laws (or so-called extreme risk protection orders).  Then we had the selection of a gun controller to head the ATF, and finally today we get loathing of suppressors.

In fact it wouldn’t surprise me to see a bill pass the House and Senate headed for Trump’s desk to outlaw them completely, something that is no more than a muffler intended to save the hearing of target shooters and sportsmen.

You see, Trump can honestly claim that he is a defender of the second amendment when his definition of the second amendment is that you get to keep a pistol in your home if the Police say so, and only under certain very strict conditions you may be able to carry it like he does.

It’s a matter of language and world and life view.  His isn’t yours, and yours isn’t his.  When he says he is a defender of the second amendment, he doesn’t mean what you want him to mean.