THE HOME DEFENSE AND HEARING PROTECTION ACT

March 24, 2020  Anthony Nunez  

Title: The Home Defense and Hearing Protection Act:

Introduction:  

Back in the 1930’s one of the first of many blatantly unconstitutional gun owner control acts was passed, it being the National Firearms Act of 1934.  It put a ridiculously high tax on suppressors or silencers so as to make them unaffordable and unavailable to citizens, but not to government agencies.  There was an attempt to ban such sound reduction devices, but the Second Amendment, still being used as written, banned any such infringement.  So the Department of Justice simply went the tax and reclassification route.  But the effect is the same.  Citizens can not get access to quality silencers or suppressors for their firearms.  Which means every time a citizen has to use a firearm for self defense, whether at home, on personal property, or outside their property; in defense of family, friends, or strangers out in public; they, along with those they are trying to save, will probably suffer permanent hearing loss during the act of saving their lives, because firearms are dangerously loud, well above the threshold of permanent hearing damage.

For target shooting, hunting, or other recreational activities, it is easy to take the time to put on hearing and eye protection.  In the short seconds you may have to save your life, you do not.  The conflict people have to decide, in split seconds, is whether their lives, are worth losing their hearing.  This is a needless and stupid choice because the technology to protect hearing, and lower the report of gunfire below the damaging level, has been available since before silencers and suppressors were banned.  In fact, they were quite popular in the 1920’s.  However, in the Depression of the 1930’s, people poached game to avoid starving, and criminals hid the sound of gunfire in the commission of a crime, by suppressing the sound of their gunfire.  That was seen by government as an aid to crime.  Since the limitations on the honest, law abiding citizen, and the rights of same, can not be touched because of the actions of criminals, in the commission of crimes, the idea of effectively banning hearing saving technology from good citizens because of what criminals might do maybe, is irrational.  To redress this insanity, and preserve the hearing of Americans while acting to save their lives in the most dire of emergencies, they have to be allowed once again unrestricted access to the silencers and suppressors that can save their hearing, without any special classification, limitation, tax, or any infringement of any kind.

Summary:

Bill removing silencers/suppressors from the NFA (National Firearms Act of 1934) list of regulated items. Additionally, all records and registries of prior silencer/suppressor owners must be destroyed. Finally, all owners of silencers/suppressors who paid $200 for the ATF tax stamp must be refunded their $200 plus the amount lost to inflation (assumed to be 3% compounding, year over year).

Rationale:

The Department of Justice and Congress of 1934 included silencers/suppressors in the list of NFA regulated items without justification. Since then, there are well over 2 million suppressors in circulation yet there is only a 0.003% conviction rate on alleged crimes involving suppressors (with even a smaller proportion being crimes of violence).

Bill Text:

1. Let it be made into law, effective immediately, that silencers/suppressors are to be removed from the NFA list of regulated items.

2. That all persons whom paid $200 tax stamps to the ATF shall be refunded in the amount of $200 plus any amount accounting for inflation at 3% per year, compounding, for the amount of time that has passed since their original payment. This refund must be completed within 365 days of the bill passing.

3. That after all persons have been refunded their monies, all records and registries pertaining to the owners of suppressors shall be destroyed. The destruction of records and registries must occur within 60 days of all refunds being issued.  

4. No citizen should have to sacrifice their hearing in order to save their life, and/or the lives of others.

ENDORSEMENTS:

BILL STATUS:

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