Gun industry works to rebrand silencers as hearing-protection accessories

[applegrove]

Gun industry works to rebrand silencers as hearing-protection accessories

Reuters/The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/08/gun-industry-silencers-suppressors-hearing-protection-congress

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The US gun industry is trying to shake off the Hollywood hitman image of the gun silencer and rebrand it as a hearing-protection device in a campaign to roll back regulations that date to the 1930s.

Industry lobbying has led to more than a dozen states legalizing silencers for hunting since 2011. Now gun advocates are pressing Congress to repeal a Depression-era law that requires a months-long screening process for silencer buyers – far more scrutiny than gun buyers face.

Sales of silencers – or “suppressors”, as the industry prefers to call them – are booming. The number of silencers registered with the US government more than doubled to 792,282 in February 2015 from 360,534 in March 2012, according to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Despite their name, silencers can only quiet a gunshot to the level of a jackhammer – not much use for James Bond-style hit jobs.



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