A letter spearheaded by the American Suppressor Association and signed by Gun Owners of America, the NRA, Second Amendment Foundation, and numerous others urges Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R) to keep provisions in the budget reconciliation bill removing the National Firearms Act tax on suppressors and short-barreled rifles and shotguns.
On May 22, 2025, Breitbart News reported the GOP-led House-passed budget reconciliation, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, included language to eliminate the tax and registration requirement on suppressors.
On June 17, 2025, Breitbart News noted that the Senate Finance Committee’s version of the reconciliation bill contained language which also removed short-barreled rifles and shotguns from the NFA tax scheme. Now, the American Suppressor Association, GOA, NRA, SAF, National Association for Gun Rights, Daniel Defense, Magpul, Brownells, Sig Sauer, Capitol Armory, Palmetto State Armory, and many others in the firearm industry are urging Majority Leader Thune to hold the course and end the NFA taxation on suppressors and short-barreled rifles and shotguns.
The National Hearing Conservation Association is also a signatory on the the letter, noting the health benefits target shooters and sportsmen garner from the use of suppressors:
Persons wearing conventional hearing protection are not without risk of NIHL [Noise Induced Hearing Loss] when using firearms. The noise reduction of hearing protection devices varies considerably across users and may provide significantly less protection from noise than the labeled noise reduction rating (NRR) suggests. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has recommended the NRR of conventional hearing protection be derated by 25% for earmuffs, 50% for formable earplugs, and 70% for all other earplugs to correspond to existing real-world data. NIOSH research has demonstrated that as many as 50% of persons using earplugs fail to achieve 25 dB of noise reduction for their earplugs. However, using conventional hearing protection in conjunction with a suppressor can significantly reduce the risk of NIHL more than using either device alone.
The Academy of Doctors of Audiology has also thrown their support behind provisions removing the NFA tax from suppressors.
Democrats are fighting the removal of the NFA tax with their usual ‘the-sky-is-failing’ approach to any reduction in taxation.
For example, on June 12, 2025, Breitbart News pointed out that Sen. Chris Murphy (D) railed against House Republican efforts to remove the NFA taxation on firearm suppressors, describing the devices as items “primarily designed for crime.” He also bought in on the Hollywood version of suppressors, suggesting they are “silencers” that silence the sound of a firearm, and falsely claimed that the push to end taxation will also remove background checks for suppressor purchases.
In reality, suppressors for firearms are similar to mufflers for cars or trucks. Even with a muffler, you can still hear the exhaust of that Ford Power Stroke engine, but the obnoxious, excruciatingly loud noises from deep inside the cylinders of the engine are softened and/or removed. The same is true for a suppressor — it eliminates the sharp, ear-piercing aspects of a gunshot, but not the sound of the gunshot altogether. By doing this, a suppressor protects the hearing of target shooters, sportsmen, and hunters.
Suppressors also protect the environment by sparing it from the most unpleasant parts of the sound of a gunshot.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
