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Senate Committee: Deregulate Suppressors and Short Barreled Firearms

The Senate Finance Committee has reported out a reconciliation bill that will de-regulate suppressors. §70436.

The amendment to 26 U.S.C. §5845(a) removes suppressors and short barreled rifles and shotguns from the NFA's special definition of "firearm," which defines what items the NFA regulates. "Any other weapon" is likewise eliminated. Now only full-autos and destructive devices are covered.

The amendment to §5845(f) removes all shotguns from the definition of "destructive device." The DD designation now covers everything everything above .50 caliber except shotguns that the Attorney General finds are "generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes." The amendment would change the exemption to simply cover shotguns.

Finally, it deals with possible state law problems by stating that state licensing requirements that refer to the NFA shall be deemed met if the firearm is possessed in accord with the Gun Control Act. This is a rough way of meeting a certain problem: some state gun laws dealt with suppressors and short-bareled arms simply by outlawing them, then stating there is an exception for those registered under the NFA. What happens if there is no NFA registration requirement any more? There might still be some problems -- can a federal statute say that a state law is complied with under certain conditions? But we may suspect that those states will amend their statutes to conform.

It'll be a great improvement if this gets enacted!!! Incidentally, the "any other weapon" provision just got into the statute by accident. The original draft of the NFA imposed a $5 tax and registration on pistols, revolvers, and any other firearm capable of concealment (to prevent someone from inventing a non-pistol to get around the law). Gun owner opposition led to delete of the pistol or revolver provision, but Congress forgot to take out the "any other" category at the same time. So we wound up with special legal requirement for a really obscure and mostly antique set of guns, guns that weren't defined as handguns, rifles, or shotguns -- palm "squeezer" pistols, cane guns, etc., most of which fired ammunition that hasn't been available for a century (altho I do have some .38 rimfire ammo somewhere).