Until this week, when a House committee approved a bill making it much easier to buy gun silencers. The measure is now on the way to the floor for a vote, and about time. This is obviously one of the nation’s great unmet needs. Seldom does a day go by when you don’t hear people bitterly complaining about how much trouble it is to muffle the sound of their shooting.
We’re talking about the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act, adorably nicknamed Share. It has a bunch of hair-raising provisions, one of which would make it easier to buy armor-piercing bullets. (We will stop for a moment to contemplate the fact that it is not currently impossible to buy armor-piercing bullets.)
There’s also a section that would really, really discourage police officers in states with serious gun safety regulations from questioning people about whether they’re carrying a weapon.
And a section that would allow for the importation of 41 frozen polar bears. The bears — well the bear carcasses — belong to American hunters who killed them legally in Canada but failed to bring them home before an importation ban went into effect. This part of the bill hasn’t gotten much publicity. However, I think we can all agree it’s time the government did something on behalf of rich guys yearning to have the head of an endangered species over the fireplace.
And we haven’t gotten yet to the provision that’s causing the most outcry. That’s the one about improving access to gun silencers. This is a cause long championed by Donald Trump Jr. We have not really seen much of Junior lately, what with all those controversies over meetings with Russians during the presidential election campaign, and we sort of miss him. Pretty soon there are going to be so many members of the family testifying before congressional investigations that all we’ll have left is Eric.
