Silencers in the last 5 years have gained significant popularity with what is now 42 of 50 states having them legalized for purchase. The most common pathway people are taking to buy them is with a trust. If you want to buy a silencer, you must simply submit a copy of your trust along with 2 background checks (Form 4s). The alternative is to buy a silencer as an “individual” which involves a lot more paperwork, signatures and time.

Our president, in his infinite pursuit to protect the American people, is looking to end what he is calling the “NFA Loophole.” (I didn’t know such a thing existed?…) The straw that Obama is grasping at involves the trustees that could be named on a given trust.

The way a trust works in regards to silencers is a trustor (owner of the trust), beneficiary (individual who will inherit the contents of the trust), and trustees (individuals who can legally use contents of the trust) must be named. Every trust is different, but all these titles could be bestowed on just one person or possibly many.

Obama’s fear is that a trustor who is a good, law-abiding citizen may have a group of potential criminals as trustees; allowing unsavory people access to the stigmatized tool of destruction that is a silencer (as viewed by our media). So to save the United States from this horror, after July 13th all NFA sales involving a trust will perform a background check on all the individuals named in the trust.

Some people view this as a practical way to curb crimes involving a silencer while others see it as another witch hunt disguised as taking away firearm rights.

The image below is the proposed change in the background check (Form 4) that will take affect July 13th.

For the time being, any NFA paperwork that is dated and submitted before July 13th is applicable to our current laws for silencers. On July 13th and any time after you will be subject to the new rules for purchase.

Something that could make all of this null and void is the “Hearing Protection Act.” This bill still has not come to a vote, but it basically would remove the NFA regulation from silencers and you could buy them over-the-counter like a shotgun for duck hunting. Until July 13th rolls around we may see a huge spike in silencer sales as we await the implementation of yet another non-sense gun control measure.