GOP tax bill would ease regulations on gun silencers and some rifles and shotguns
WASHINGTON (AP) — The massive tax and spending cuts package that President Donald Trump wants on his desk by July 4 would loosen regulations on gun silencers and certain types of rifles and shotguns, advancing a longtime priority of the gun industry as Republican leaders in the House and Senate try to win enough votes to pass the bill.
The guns provision was first requested in the House by Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Republican gun store owner who had initially opposed the larger tax package. The House bill would remove silencers — called 'suppressors' by the gun industry — from a 1930s law that regulates firearms that are considered the most dangerous, eliminating a $200 tax while removing a layer of background checks.
The Senate kept the provision on silencers in its version of the bill and expanded upon it, adding short-barreled, or sawed-off, rifles and shotguns.
Republicans who have long supported the changes, along with the gun industry, say the tax infringes on Second Amendment rights. They say silencers are mostly used by hunters and target shooters for sport.
'Burdensome regulations and unconstitutional taxes shouldn't stand in the way of protecting American gun owners' hearing,' said Clyde, who owns two gun stores in Georgia and often wears a pin shaped like an assault rifle on his suit lapel.
Democrats are fighting to stop the provision, which was unveiled days after two Minnesota state legislators were shot in their homes, as the bill speeds through the Senate. They argue that loosening regulations on silencers could make it easier for criminals and active shooters to conceal their weapons.
'Parents don't want silencers on their streets, police don't want silencers on their streets,' said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
The gun language has broad support among Republicans and has received little attention as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., work to settle differences within the party on cuts to Medicaid and energy tax credits, among other issues. But it is just one of hundreds of policy and spending items included to entice members to vote for the legislation that could have broad implications if the bill is enacted within weeks, as Trump wants.
Inclusion of the provision is also a sharp turn from the climate in Washington just three years ago when Democrats, like Republicans now, controlled Congress and the White House and pushed through bipartisan gun legislation. The bill increased background checks for some buyers under the age of 21, made it easier to take firearms from potentially dangerous people and sent millions of dollars to mental health services in schools.
Passed in the summer of 2022, just weeks after the shooting of 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas, it was the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades.
Three years later, as they try to take advantage of their consolidated power in Washington, Republicans are packing as many of their longtime priorities as possible, including the gun legislation, into the massive, wide-ranging bill that Trump has called 'beautiful.'
'I'm glad the Senate is joining the House to stand up for the Second Amendment and our Constitution, and I will continue to fight for these priorities as the Senate works to pass President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill,' said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who was one of the lead negotiators on the bipartisan gun bill in 2022 but is now facing a primary challenge from the right in his bid for reelection next year.
If the gun provisions remain in the larger legislation and it is passed, silencers and the short-barrel rifles and shotguns would lose an extra layer of regulation that they are subject to under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. They would still be subject to the same regulations that apply to most other guns — and that includes possible loopholes that allow some gun buyers to avoid background checks when guns are sold privately or online.
Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who supports the legislation, says changes are aimed at helping target shooters and hunters protect their hearing. He argues that the use of silencers in violent crimes is rare. 'All it's ever intended to do is to reduce the report of the firearm to hearing safe levels,' Keane says.
Speaking on the floor before the bill passed the House, Rep. Clyde said the bill restores Second Amendment rights from 'over 90 years of draconian taxes.' Clyde said Johnson included his legislation in the larger bill 'with the purest of motive.'
'Who asked for it? I asked,' said Clyde, who ultimately voted for the bill after the gun silencer provision was added.
Clyde was responding to Rep. Maxwell Frost, a 28-year-old Florida Democrat, who went to the floor and demanded to know who was responsible for the gun provision. Frost, who was a gun-control activist before being elected to Congress, called himself a member of the 'mass shooting generation' and said the bill would help 'gun manufacturers make more money off the death of children and our people.'
Among other concerns, control advocates say less regulation for silencers could make it harder for law enforcement to stop an active shooter.
'There's a reason silencers have been regulated for nearly a century: They make it much harder for law enforcement and bystanders to react quickly to gunshots,' said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.
Schumer and other Democrats are trying to convince the Senate parliamentarian to drop the language as she reviews the bill for policy provisions that aren't budget-related.
'Senate Democrats will fight this provision at the parliamentary level and every other level with everything we've got,' Schumer said earlier this month.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
33 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
India-US Eye Trade Deal by July Though Challenges Remain
India and the US are keen to clinch an early trade deal before the July 9 deadline, when higher US tariffs are set to kick in, but challenges remain, according to an official familiar with the matter. Sectors including agriculture are proving to be one of the toughest parts of the negotiations, the person told reporters on Monday in New Delhi, asking not to be identified as the negotiations are ongoing.
Fox News
33 minutes ago
- Fox News
US service members, diplomats most at risk for physical attack from Iran, expert warns
All times eastern FOX News Radio Live Channel Coverage WATCH LIVE: Trump to huddle with top brass after hammering Iran's nuclear sites
Fox News
34 minutes ago
- Fox News
'Mofo...in the White House': Jasmine Crockett attacks Trump, praises Massie in anti-Iran strike rant
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, launched another tirade against President Donald Trump over the weekend, while offering rare praise for one of her House GOP colleagues who is currently at odds with the commander in chief. The Democratic firebrand took to Instagram Live late Saturday to criticize Trump's strikes on Iran, while giving a "shout out" to Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., over his bipartisan resolution to rein in the president's ability to conduct such operations. "So long story short, for those of you that are unaware, the mofo that resides in the White House has unilaterally, in my estimation, declared war," Crockett said in the video. "Mofo" is often used as a shorthand term for the curse phrase "motherf---er." Crockett, an outspoken progressive, is part of the chorus of voices on the left accusing Trump of wrongly bypassing Congress in his military operation against Tehran's nuclear sites. Trump officials have maintained that they are in compliance with the War Powers Act. "We are living in this time in which there is someone who is occupying the White House who does not care about any rules, any norms, any laws, nor the Constitution. And we cannot be a civilized country if there is no law and order," Crockett said. She then launched an attack on Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration, accusing him of doing more harm with his strikes on Iran. "I know that they may claim, 'We law and order, blah blah blah. So go get the undocumented people and let's try to ship them out.' Let me tell you something – they are not the people that are putting us in harm's way," Crockett said. "It is him and his administration that is putting us in harm's way." Crockett called on her supporters to confront Trump supporters, adding, "I literally need you to wake them the f--- up, because everything since he has stepped into office has done nothing other than put us in harm's way." Later in the roughly 20-minute video, Crockett asked her supporters living in Republican-held districts to reach out to their representatives in Congress. "We need action now, and that is going to take a few Republicans, like, getting on the right page," she said. "And right now there's only one Republican that I know I can count on for sure doing the right thing. And that's going to be Thomas Massie. The rest of them, it's a little bit questionable." Foreign entanglements, particularly when the U.S. military is involved, are an issue that's made for strange political bedfellows in the past. When the House passed emergency foreign aid last year in separate packages by region, each passed with bipartisan support – while also seeing "no" votes from dovish progressives and conservatives wary of U.S. involvement overseas. Trump's weekend strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities are no different. While the move gained wide support from Republican leaders and some pro-Israel Democrats, a small group of conservatives has expressed varying levels of concern. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., posted on X that she could "support President Trump and his great administration on many of the great things they are doing while disagreeing on bombing Iran and getting involved in a hot war that Israel started." Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, commended the "strength and precision" of the strikes to Fox News Digital on Sunday but argued Congress needed to regain its "war powers." "While President Trump has legal precedent on his side, the legal reality underscores how far we've drifted from the constitutional order," Davidson said. Massie, who has been one of the most consistent lawmakers in Congress regarding his skepticism of foreign entanglements, is leading a resolution alongside Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., to limit Trump's war powers on Iran. He told Fox News Digital on Sunday that he hoped to force a vote on the bipartisan measure and signaled cautious optimism that it could succeed. "I think it could [pass the House], because we have such a tight majority. And the Democrats aren't very consistent about war, but when there's a Republican in the White House, they find their religion, their anti-war religion again," Massie said. Fox News Digital reached out to Massie's office and the White House for comments on Crockett's video.
