Reports that Trump has ordered the DOJ not to appeal the Jensen/Silencer Shop ruling on NFA items — effectively pulling silencers and short-barrel long guns out of the NFA — has all the right people on the anti-gun left desperately looking for the nearest fainting couch. Yet all this performative outrage only reveals how incredibly ignorant these people are.
Their rage is directed at:
1. Suppressors – cans scare them because of Hollywood, not reality. For the most part, most suppressed guns are still quite loud, and suppressors are rarely used in crimes anyway (as even Giffords admits). To the extent they think NFA registration is the reason for that, suppressor sales will still require NICS background checks and will be treated just like firearms.
2. Short barrel rifles (and shotguns – as if a rifle with a 14-inch barrel is some deadly killing machine gangster-weapon because it’s two inches shorter than the non-NFA minimum of 16 inches.
It’s all just so stupid.
Kostas Moros is Director of Legal Research and Education for the Second Amendment Foundation.