BY: DOC SPEARS
I write this on Monday, 1 July 2025, the Vice-President has just cast the tie-breaking vote to send the One Big Beautiful Bill back to the house. Which means, my title as a modern day Oracle of Delphi remains intact. As I predicted, the senate plucked out nearly everything I truly cared about from the bill; primarily, the HPA and the SHORT Act—incredibly simple and common sense provisions to restore some of our wrongfully restricted firearm rights.
I also predict, the house will do nothing to restore those provisions.
I know. Not much of a fortune telling act. Because history records a perfect track record of Congress producing not one concrete piece of legislation to affirm our rights under the 2nd Amendment. Ever.
And I also predict—with a 100% chance of accuracy—that every one of the RINOs who let the HPA and SHORT Act be stripped out of the OBBB will be asking for your $$$, because without them, your 2A rights are in danger.
And what choice do we have? I wish I knew.
While I’m highly optimistic about America’s future, I’m a pessimist about how our 2nd Amendment is treated by Washington. And pessimists are rarely disappointed.
If you’re a Wargate Subscriber you probably know all about these provisions, but if not, here you go: the Hearing Protection Act was meant to remove firearm suppressors (erroneously referred to as silencers) from the silly and Draconian nearly 100-year-old legislation that keeps any American who wants one from easily and rightfully enjoying their benefits. The SHORT Act was meant to extinguish the meaningless definitions as to what constitutes a pistol and a short barreled rifle, and why if you have the wrong type of buttstock on one you can be charged with a federal crime.
As always, a bit of history is in order.
The National Firearms Act of 1934 was the first federal firearms regulation, enacted as a means to address the organized crime wave that began in the previous decade and peaked in the early years of the Great Depression. Criminals armed with Tommy guns and BARs were glamorized by the media. But by the time the NFA was passed, Al Capone was already a few years into a prison term for tax evasion, Bonnie and Clyde had met their end a month or so before, and John Dillinger was only a few weeks away from his own dirt nap.
Did making a federal crime out of possession of automatic weapons end this sensational period of violence? Did it prevent future crime waves? Or was it the effective targeting and punishment of violent criminals that ended the terror? Beats me. The NFA’s real legacy was becoming the genesis of every subsequent infringement on the 2nd Amendment, and the excuse to address criminal violence by removing the rights of the law abiding.
As well as making fully automatic weapons illegal to possess, congress heaped into the NFA stipulations making illegal any rifle with a barrel shorter than 16” and shotgun less than 18”; because those barrel lengths make them concealable. Huh? What scientific process was used to determine those lengths, and why was two inches the difference between making one more easily hidden on the body than the other? No one knows.
Each type of firearm or accessory listed on the NFA could still be owned, provided there was approval by a registration process, accompanied by the payment of a $200 tax. Its purpose was to deter ownership, by making the items exorbitantly expensive. Comply with the process and the tax, or become a federal felon. $200 in 1934 equates to more than $4000 today.
The same tax stamp system exists now. Once obtained by the grace of the State, it serves as the proof that an item dangerous to the public good has now been magically transformed. It’s no longer a cursed item, capable of tempting you to become another Al Capone. Instead, by the alchemy of a bureaucratic process culminating in a tax, the evil item is now acceptable. Somewhat. Because the NFA expanded the role of a federal agency that once regulated alcohol during prohibition, into one also responsible for making criminals out of anyone possessing an NFA item.
Prohibition was repealed, but the war on citizens owning firearms had just started.
But most absurdly, the NFA made the possession of “silencers” illegal.
The history of a muffler for firearms had begun only a few decades earlier than the NFA. The son of Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the modern machine gun, invented a firearms muffler around 1900, inspired by his father’s severe hearing loss from exposure to gunfire. The devices could be purchased by mail and soon, many firearms manufacturers offered their rifles with the Maxim Silencer. In the picture above is the muzzle of a model 1892 Winchester from my collection, this one manufactured in 1902, threaded for the Maxim device and complete with the factory thread protector.
(The fuzzy muzzle of a Marlin lever gun next to it, a model 1894 made about the same time as the Winchester next to it, also has a threaded muzzle device.)
Suppressors were legal until 1934. Rather than become a felon, most folks soon destroyed their suppressors rather than pay the exorbitant fee (what would $200 have meant during the Depression?) and like these rifles in my collection, the threaded attachments on those guns remained unused forever more.
Calling it a “silencer” was a marketing tool. From their invention until today, the device suppresses and attenuates the noise through the same mechanism by which the muffler on a car works. There are a series of baffles to slow and cool the release of gasses, and thereby dissipate the flash and noise produced when they finally do exit. That’s it.
But the result is to make the noise more or less “ear safe.” It does not silence the sound of a firearm discharging, which is why they are properly called suppressors. But in most instances, it’s unnecessary to use ear protection with a firearm wearing a suppressor. Any bullet traveling faster than the speed of sound still produces the “crack” heard from a firearm discharging, and even bullets travelling sub-sonic (less than about 1000 fps) are still nowhere near silent.
So why were suppressors placed on the NFA in 1934 if the intent was to remove dangerous tools available to violent organized crime gangs? The original concern was not in preventing violent crimes like assassinations. Rather, it was concern that use of suppressors would enable the poaching of game off-season.
Read this next very carefully. Congress put suppressors on the NFA because they were more concerned that it might interfere with the detection of someone feeding their starving families during the Depression than they were concerned with a remedy for families starving.
Fact.
This is how little things change in Washington.
Thanks to education about what suppressors actually do, over the last 20 years what was once rare has become common and widespread. I highly encourage you to own a suppressor for every rifle. The process is a complete hassle, even if the fee is still the same $200 as it was in 1934. Owing to their popularity and abundant use, services have developed to ease the difficulty of obtaining a can, including kiosks that can take your fingerprints and prepare the form for a fee.
The longest I’ve ever waited on approval for a suppressor was 14 months—so long that when I got the call from my dealer, I’d completely forgotten I’d even submitted the paperwork.
I haven’t needed to purchase a can in a few years, and reports are that the waiting times are much improved. But why should there be any obstacle at all? In many European countries, for the public good all rifles are mandated to have suppressors. Not that I think Europe is any kind of example for how we should do things, but I’ve often thought if our government wants to be truly punitive, they’d do the same and force us to purchase a can with every rifle.
The number of crimes committed with suppressed weapons are almost non-existent; and there are literally millions of legally owned cans in the U.S. In fact, of the statistically near-zero incidents of crimes committed with suppressed firearms, the only well documented example is that by LAPD officer Christopher Dorner, who killed four people in 2013 when he believed he’d been wrongfully terminated; using legally obtained firearms and legally obtained suppressors.
Murder is already illegal. And no matter how well regulated the process of deciding who’s trusted in our society, or what inanimate object is safe or dangerous, criminals are criminals. Even if they’re a cop.
I’ll do my next piece on the practical aspects of suppressors, and the how and why of selecting them.
But by the time you read this, I’m certain that this Nostradamus will still be batting a thousand. And if by some unforeseen miracle to come I’ve struck out, I’ll be the happiest loser you’ve ever seen.