Washington, D.C. – Today, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources voted to pass the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act, a law that includes a dangerous provision aimed at deregulating firearm silencers. Chelsea Parsons, vice president of Guns and Crime Policy at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement in response:
The National Rifle Association has successfully hijacked a bill intended to address issues related to our national parks and public lands and stuffed it full of giveaways to the gun industry. There are a number of dangerous provisions in this bill that would weaken our nation’s gun laws, the most concerning of which would upend more than 80 years of federal law and eliminate crucial regulatory oversight of firearm silencers. Silencers pose a unique threat to public safety, and the current law regulating them already works: Law-abiding gun owners now own silencers in record numbers, and yet their use in crime remains rare. There is absolutely no reason to weaken the current law other than to help boost profits for the gun industry. The House should reject this dangerous measure and instead focus its time and energy on enacting commonsense laws that will help reduce the epidemic of gun violence in this country.
For more information on how regulating silencers protects public safety, click here.
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Kyle Epstein at [email protected] or 202.481.8137.