Last Sunday in Plano, Texas, a man fatally shot eight people at his estranged wife’s Dallas Cowboys watch party, including his wife. He was stopped after a police officer arriving on the scene heard gunfire, was confronted by the gunman, and shot him.
Two days later, the NRA got one step closer to realizing its wish to disguise the sound of gunfire. On Tuesday, the Republicans in Congress moved forward the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act, which would specifically deregulate silencers among a host of other alarming provisions for weakening federal gun laws. This is a very bad bill.
The SHARE Act includes one of the NRA’s top legislative priorities, the laughably named the Hearing Protection Act, which would remove silencers from the National Firearms Act (NFA) that was enacted by Congress in 1934 to fight organized crime. But make no mistake, deregulating silencers has little to do with protecting hearing and a lot to do with lifting profits: Silencers are the fastest growing segment of the shooting market. Deregulation would help sales soar, because buyers – including the dangerously mentally ill, domestic abusers, and people with violent records – would no longer need to go through a months-long waiting period and would no longer need to be registered.
Silencers were not designed to protect hearing, but to disguise the sound of gunfire. If they become readily available and widely used, gunfire would become much harder to identify, thereby impeding law enforcement’s ability to swiftly respond to dangerous shootings and further endangering the public. Major law enforcement groups oppose the deregulation of silencers, including the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives, and the Police Foundation.
Sign on now and tell Congress to reject any legislation that would deregulate silencers, including the Hearing Protection Act and the SHARE Act. *When you click you'll instantly sign if we have all the required information
Together, we are a strong voice for safer families and communities.
Related Posts
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of MomsRising.org.
MomsRising.org strongly encourages our readers to post comments in response to blog posts. We value diversity of opinions and perspectives. Our goals for this space are to be educational, thought-provoking, and respectful. So we actively moderate comments and we reserve the right to edit or remove comments that undermine these goals. Thanks!