Sometimes I wonder how much of this is coming from the industry...protectionism.
As long as suppressors are on the NFA, you'll need a special license to make them. Dropping the tax to $5 but leaving them on the registry will help suppressor manufacturers sell more of their wares without lowering the bar of entry for competitors.
If they were removed from the list altogether, any old schmo who can stick some baffles in a flashlight body would be selling suppressors for $50 a pop. the big name manufacturers would have to drop their prices to compete and their profit margin goes out the window.
A lot of the reason that suppressors made out of $10 in materials and 1/2 hour of labor in assembly cost $600 is because there's a limited number of suppliers and you're paying them for the effort and hoops they had to jump through to get legal to make their products. A lot of them might end up going out of business if suppressors were taken off the NFA altogether and we could buy a suppressor mail order from MidwayUsa.
I similarly think people who already legally own automatic weapons would lobby very hard to prevent repeal of the NFA, or even to repeal the Hughes amendment to the FOPA...if new machine guns can be registered the value of all those $15k grease guns and $25k M-16's would go down the toilet. I have no doubt it would pain them terribly to see their investment wither on the vine when anyone could buy a new production M-16 for $1k and register it for $200.
The ones that are in the club still want the club open for business, but they sure don't want just any old riff raff to be able to join.
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It's the Uniparty ...
Sometimes I wonder how much of this is coming from the industry...protectionism.
As long as suppressors are on the NFA, you'll need a special license to make them. Dropping the tax to $5 but leaving them on the registry will help suppressor manufacturers sell more of their wares without lowering the bar of entry for competitors.
If they were removed from the list altogether, any old schmo who can stick some baffles in a flashlight body would be selling suppressors for $50 a pop. the big name manufacturers would have to drop their prices to compete and their profit margin goes out the window.
A lot of the reason that suppressors made out of $10 in materials and 1/2 hour of labor in assembly cost $600 is because there's a limited number of suppliers and you're paying them for the effort and hoops they had to jump through to get legal to make their products. A lot of them might end up going out of business if suppressors were taken off the NFA altogether and we could buy a suppressor mail order from MidwayUsa.
I similarly think people who already legally own automatic weapons would lobby very hard to prevent repeal of the NFA, or even to repeal the Hughes amendment to the FOPA...if new machine guns can be registered the value of all those $15k grease guns and $25k M-16's would go down the toilet. I have no doubt it would pain them terribly to see their investment wither on the vine when anyone could buy a new production M-16 for $1k and register it for $200.
The ones that are in the club still want the club open for business, but they sure don't want just any old riff raff to be able to join.
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