NEW REPORT: Despite Major Public Safety Risks, Gun Industry is Doubling Down on Efforts to Deregulate Silencers

Last Month, the House of Representatives Passed a Reconciliation Bill Making it Easier to Own Silencers 

WASHINGTON — Today, The Smoking Gun, an Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund resource dedicated to exposing the gun industry’s role in our gun violence epidemic, released a new report highlighting the danger of silencers, or sound suppressors, and the gun industry’s efforts to deregulate them.

Last month, the House of Representatives passed a budget reconciliation bill that included provisions to eliminate the registration and ownership requirements for silencers that have been in place since the National Firearms Act went into effect in 1934, including the $200 tax on purchasing the devices and the $200 tax on making them.

“Silencers are a serious public safety risk, making it much harder for law enforcement and bystanders to react quickly to gunshots,” said Greg Lickenbrock, Senior Firearms Analyst at Everytown for Gun Safety. “If silencers are deregulated, the gun industry stands to gain millions of dollars at the expense of the safety of our communities and law enforcement. Congress should update and reinforce the National Firearms Act to make it more difficult for dangerous people to obtain silencers — and provide guardrails for an industry that prioritizes profits over public safety.”

Read the full report here.

Key Points

• An Everytown analysis found that silencers have been used in over 100 violent incidents and planned attacks, and over 400 federal cases involving serious crimes. The research is the most comprehensive to date.
  • Silencers have been used in several high-profile crimes, including the 2024 murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare and the 2023 mass shooting in Monterey Park, where 11 people were killed and nine were wounded.
  • In May 2019, a mass shooter killed 12 people and wounded four others at a government office building in Virginia Beach, Virginia, using two pistols, including one equipped with a silencer. One survivor said that the shooter’s suppressed pistol sounded like “a nail gun.” She went on to explain that “[i]f it was a regular gunshot, we would’ve definitely known a lot sooner, even if we would’ve had 30 or 60 seconds more. I think we could’ve all secured ourselves…all of us could’ve barricaded ourselves in.”
  • Other incidents in the report involve extremists, organized crime, and attacks on police.

• Despite the risk they pose to public safety, the gun industry has spent years trying to rebrand silencers as harmless safety devices — and has redoubled its efforts to deregulate silencers in the second Trump administration.
  • Leading this effort is the American Suppressor Association, which has claimed that “the suppressor industry could multiply by 10 times” if silencers were deregulated. 
  • Gun industry lobbying has already led to faster silencer approvals from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, leading to a surge in silencer sales.
  • Americans owned just over 285,000 silencers in 2010, but that number has ballooned to 4.9 million as of July 2024, representing a 1,604-percent increase. Of those, 1.4 million were purchased and registered in the first six months of 2024 alone.

• Silencer manufacturers and retailers rely on several toxic marketing tropes in their advertisements and social media posts.
  • They often depict silencers as a “gateway” to bringing new shooters, especially children, into the fold because they reduce noise. 
  • Another tactic is showing silencers in the hands of military and police personnel — using what gun makers call the “halo effect” to legitimize their products for civilians.