While I'm ranting about the ATF being goat fucking asshats over pistol braces, I thought I'd chime in on another subject where they eagerly blew donkey dicks.
In the pistol brace entry, I mentioned tax stamps and how they were required for any NFA item. What you're probably not aware of is that you can build your own silencer, which uses the same approval process as a short barreled rifle; the creatively named Form 1. I began building my own silencers while I was waiting for my "store bought" unit to clear ATF waiting hell. A store bought suppressor takes close to a year for approval, whereas a Form 1 is closer to 30 days.
Building your own didn't require you to have a machine shop, because various manufacturers made the components to build your own. However, they were marketed as solvent trap parts and not drilled, so they were legal. The ATF even said so. Once you drilled through the cups and end cap, you had a silencer. Various vendors even sold drill jigs to make sure your holes were properly centered. Of course, my fellow enthusiasts (because of course there was an internet message board or two devoted to the hobby) and I dutifully waited for our Form 1's to be approved before we started drilling or even ordering parts. We were online talking about silencers which made us ripe targets for the jack booted thugs. None of us wanted the felony conviction, thanks. Again, EVERY SILENCER I'VE BUILT HAS AN APPROVED FORM 1. Is the microphone on?
One of the other enthusiasts dropped the money for a real dB meter and some major innovation began taking place. New cone designs were yielding amazing performance. A few I built are ridiculously quiet, even using it on a high powered rifle.
And then, the ATF decided a particular vendor ventured too close to selling silencers, because he sold kits, with the cones center market and jigs. This poor guy lost everything and was sentenced to serious jail time, because ATF fucking sucks and is fucking capricious. And then, they got ugly. Others had gone under, but it was different this time, because ATF went through his customer list. I had been a customer, so I received an intimidating letter from the special douchebag agent in charge of the Detroit field office, informing me I may have committed a felony and I had 30 days to surrender the parts, which were now considered silencers themselves. I worked it out, because the parts had already been consumed to build approved Form 1 silencers and my dog didn't get shot. The agent I spoke with was actually quite pleasant; I told her she wasn't a big enough asshole to work for ATF. (They know they're hated, so she accepted the compliment.)
The ATF had changed their interpretation of what a silencer was and it was so broad that if I bought a potato, with the intent of shoving it on the end of the barrel of a gun, it was a silencer and I committed a felony the moment I left the grocery store. If you were a machine shop and bought bar stock to build your approved silencer, that bar stock was technically a silencer, according to the ATF. And suddenly, Form 1 submissions required schematics of your planned build. I heard a few people wrote that they hadn't even thought about it, to stay legal, and they would procure raw material from a titanium mine.
With this capricious decision, the Form 1 salad days ended. The best vendors closed up shop and technology has returned to the most rudimentary.
All of that being said, I'm fully aware that those of us who earnestly tried to remain within the law (whatever it was at the moment) represented perhaps 10% of those who were building their own cans. I'm also fully aware a previous ATF director testified that silencers shouldn't even be on the NFA. The only way they're lethal is if you bean someone over the head with one.
So, there's another example of why I oppose laws pertaining to limiting shooting equipment; they provide the ATF with further fodder to screw the shooting community.
About the author: Sean R is a recovering conservative who owns a consulting firm specializing in strategic marketing. He's been a competitive shooter since the early 90's and holds a High Master classification in PPC and a Master classification in USPSA. Additionally, he's served as an instructor for gun safety and competition courses. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his overly vocal white dog, Sadie.
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