The Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act, also referred to as the Silencer Bill, is a bipartisan bill that, according to the House Committee on Natural Resources, “expands opportunities for hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting; increases safety and hearing protection for sportsmen and women; and protects Second Amendment rights.”
The bill was passed in September by the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House itself could vote on this legislation as soon as this week.
The act includes provisions allowing greater access to federal lands for hunting, fishing and shooting. It allows “law abiding citizens” to have firearms on US Army Corps lands, the transportation of bow hunting equipment through national parks and exempts ammunition and fishing tackle from EPA regulations. However, the provision of the act that is currently getting the most attention is the Hearing Protection Act, added by Jeff Duncan from South Carolina.
This provision, concealed as just a small part of a much broader act to benefit sportsmen, would make it easier for people to purchase gun silencers. Especially following the largest mass shooting in modern US history in Las Vegas this past Sunday, this part of the bill is facing a lot of opposition.
According to Politico, right now, getting a gun silencer requires a fingerprint, a photograph and a $200 transfer tax to purchase, and it can take up to nine months to obtain. Federal law enforcement agencies keep track of who owns silencers. New measures proposed in Duncan’s act would simply require people have an instant background check before purchasing a silencer.
Duncan and proponents of this legislation claim silencers protect hunters from hearing loss that could be garnered from gunfire. They also say the loud sound of gun shots can make it harder for hunters to hear their surroundings, which could put them and others in danger.
But this bill also comes at a time when sales for gun silencers have been down, and if the problem is hearing loss, earmuffs can block as much noise as a silencer. This is not to say that silencers don’t have their uses, but rather that the benefits of silencers may not outweigh the costs.
If the shooter in Las Vegas had a gun silencer, would more deaths have occurred? Most gun control advocates say yes, gun silencers make it harder for both law enforcement and civilians to know an active shooter’s location, thus increasing the difficulty of finding and stopping the shooter along with the ability of civilians to get away from the shooter. Many cite the case of Christopher Dorner, who shot and killed four people over the course of nine days in 2013. People in the vicinity of the shots did not report anything to the police because Dorner used a silencer on his gun, so they had no idea shots were being fired.
In my opinion, much more needs to be done with gun control than simply keeping this bill from passing, but if this bill does pass, it will be a step in the completely wrong direction. Not passing the bill doesn’t mean banning silencers all together, it just means the process of obtaining a silencer won’t be made easier. So let your legislators know: the SHARE Act cannot be allowed to pass with the Hearing Protection Act. Especially in light of recent events, the Silencer Bill just doesn’t make sense.