On March 13 Breitbart News reported that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) was fighting deregulation of “deadly gun silencers,” alleging that they put law enforcement and communities at risk.
On March 20 The Washington Post examined Gillibrand’s position–especially her claim that “silencers” make guns dangerous by making them “quiet”–and gave her three Pinnochios for “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.”
Gillibrand is opposed to the Hearing Protection Act. The Act is sponsored by Representatives Jeff Duncan (R-SC-3) and John Carter (R-TX-31) and touts the benefits of noise reduction–not noise elimination–achieved via firearm suppressors. The Act also seeks to remove the burdensome bureaucratic process currently tied to acquiring a suppressor. That process involves being fingerprinted, photographed, passing a background check, paying the federal government a $200 tax, and then registering the suppressor with the ATF.
Gillibrand told the New York Daily News, “These deadly gun silencers pose a huge risk to our enforcement and our communities and I will do everything I can to stop this ill-thought-out legislation that would allow more criminals to get their hands on these dangerous weapons.”
She tweeted:
When someone gets shot by a gun with a silencer, it's quiet. Witnesses might not hear. Police will be less likely to track down the shooter.
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) March 14, 2017
WAPO quoted Marc Brumer, a Gillibrand spokesman, saying,
We aren’t necessarily talking about being out in the middle of the woods deer hunting where it is extremely quiet. Instead, gun crimes often occur in cities and in other very noisy places. The shots would be heard by law enforcement or witnesses at the gun’s typical decibel level, but they often cannot be heard when a silencer is added. There are many sounds in cities that are far louder than a gunshot masked by a silencer.
WAPO countered Brumer and Gillibrand by explaining that suppressors to do not completely eliminate the noise of a firearm. Rather, they reduce it. They reported, “Although the popular name of this accessory is a silencer, foes of the law such as Gillibrand should not use misleading terms such as ;quiet’ to describe the sound made by a high-powered weapon with a suppressor attached.”
WAPO then gave Gillibrand three Pinocchios for her claims.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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