Endorsed early in his run for President of the United States by the National Rifle Association, gun owners had become nervous about the lack of progress that the Trump administration was making in the realm of expanding and protecting the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

Possibly in an effort to shift the news cycle away from claims of Russian hacking and Obama wiretapping, President Trump this morning announced that he has signed an executive order enacting much of the provisions of the Hearing Protection Act and bypassing Congress.

From the press release:

Past administrations have made it more difficult for law abiding citizens to exercise their God-given, constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. The Trump administration seeks to reduce government interference at all levels and promote firearms safety. Allowing citizens to voluntarily register their firearms in a more efficient manner will increase firearms safety without any increase in crime.

While Donald Trump can’t unilaterally change the law surrounding the National Firearms Act and its inclusion of silencers as regulated items, he can change the way the ATF processes the paperwork.

Under the new executive order the ATF will roll back Obama-era requirements for fingerprinting on individual members of a trust, and will consider anyone who has mailed their registration application to the ATF (with enclosed check) to have complied with the requirements of the National Firearms Act.

This new process will allow gun stores to immediately release suppressors to buyers. Owners will need to retain a copy of their mailed forms until full approval has been received and the registry is actually updated.

When asked to comment on the Trump administration’s move, former President Barack Obama said, “Is it April Fools already?”

107 COMMENTS

      • WTF was funny about this article? FU for me too! Make it ludicrous not plausible you idiot,

        • It wasn’t funny. I’m quite angry at this point towards Trump and his lack of action on the 2nd Amendment. Shades of Bush Sr here. If a real pro 2nd guy was Pres, and if publicans were truly pro 2nd, we would have seen all sorts of EOs overturning import bans and ordering vast changes at ATF, and bills in congress for the elimination of said agency. Fooled again, I suppose

    • “I knew you’d do HPA for this years April fools.”

      There’s a better one out there today, Tyler.

      And it had me going until I thought about it for awhile.

      Besides, Nick used a screen grab from that click-bait crapola that occupies the right side of TTAG…

    • Hey it is a decent one considering so many of ttag’s readers really, really, want hpa to pass.

  1. I knew it was a joke as soon as it was acknowledged by this website that Trump pulls chaff at the expense of the American people just to cover his own ass and/or shenanigans and/or treasonous dealings with Russian mobsters/politicians.

      • Trump promised us he was going to do several things on his first day. To this day he has done absolutely nothing. When 2020 rolls around, or even 2018, the way Republicans are working, you’re not going to be singing the same tune, and it’s going to go back to panic after panic because Trump did nothing to help. All because People like you kept caressing his balls instead of putting his feet to the fire. Sure is great for politicians when the people forget who works for whom.

        • “To this day he has done absolutely nothing.”

          *LIE*. He’s cancelled a couple of Obama’s gun EOs related to ammunition.

          You call that “absolutely nothing.”?

        • So yeah, nothing. Donald Trump promised more than just cancelling the previous President’s EOs, and to this day he has kept none of his promises. One executive order he could have signed on the first day was allowing military members to carry on post. Did he do that? No. He could have directed the ATF to revise certain opinions. Did he do that? No. Or he could have simply reversed Obama-era import bans. Did he do that? No, and he shows no signs of ever moving to do anything for the second amendment the way things are looking. He could have done quite a bit, but instead he spent his time golfing and spending taxpayer money on his family than actually working for us. I get it, he’s supposed to be “our guy”, but the fact of the matter is that he seems to have forgotten who put him there.

        • JAlan you need to wake the hell up. “he has done absolutely nothing” is BS. He may not have stroke your ego but despite the machinations and obstructionism of the demtards has gotten considerable “done”. The 2nd is only ONE of the critical issue the needs to be address after 28 years of marxists and RINOs in the Whitehouse. Unfortunately there are too many marxists and RINOs in the Congress.

        • Going off to play golf instead of working isn’t just “not stroking [my] ego”. It’s downright not doing his job. He doesn’t need the democrats to issue executive orders. I think you need to wake the hell up and realize that unless you start complaining loudly, nothing is going to get done. The president promised a lot of things “day one” and he has kept zero of those promises. Again, I get the “our guy” mentality, but the fact is that you have less than two years before democrats potentially grab more power and then the HPA and all the other good things promised to you and me will be made absolutely impossible to do. Did you vote for getting your rights back or for a temporary cease fire? Because it’s looking much like the latter.

        • You mean you actually expected a politician to keep his word? I did as well in this one case, but maybe both of us have learned the lesson now, there are powers unseen to most that actually control this country, and have since the inception of the private banking scam called the federal reserve (1913)

          They want us disarmed and working on the plantation. As soon as he sat down in the Oval office they read him the rules. Did you all notice how much he “changed” just a few months in? They have him by the short hairs

  2. F.U. and your April fools day B.S. Don’t waste my time, there’s already way too much fake “journalism” out there.

  3. There are two kinds of jokes: Those where you laugh WITH the person you’re telling the joke to and those that you laugh AT the person you’re telling the joke to.

    Never been a fan of the latter.

    O2

  4. R’s control Congress and the executive branch. Time to go to sleep and start complaining and buying guns only when they don’t have it all. No HPA or reciprocity for you. Rinse and Repeat.

  5. Really excited for about 2 seconds…… Then realized what day it was as I was waiting for the page to load. This one feels mean spirited. Weak.

  6. I would have thought that us gunnies had less snowflakes than the other side. I was wrong.

  7. Well actually I’m glad this is just a joke. Otherwise the left would use this as just more ammo to use against the President.

    • Yeah, you’re right. We should all just roll over and not fight for our rights, because otherwise the Left might have ammo to use against us. [/sarc] If you let their shaming tactics prevent you from doing the right thing, they win.

    • Trump and GOP are too busy shooting each other in the foot to have anything to fear from “the left”

  8. I really wanted to believe it, to be honest. But, this does actually sound like something he would do, though…

    Hey, Drumpf, ya’ listening? lel … Nah, probably not.

    And the beat goes on.

    • I’ll admit it, I bought it right up until the end. It didn’t sound totally out of the realm of possibility.

      Just goes to show how much easier it is to believe something when you want it to be true.

  9. Nasty…April fools should be humorous. I was all set to ask how this affects Illinois’s silencer ban 🙁

  10. God I hate this April’s Fool nonsense. I’m taking a week off from TTAG while I try to find a more useful firearms blog.

  11. I sincerely hope I never get news of a loved one’s death on April 1st. That’s going to be a hell of an awkward conversation.

  12. Anybody who engages in April Fool’s Day tomfoolery is a major dick. *glares at Nick Leghorn* Dick Leghorn.

  13. Evil, wicked, mean, and nasty!! I’m going to boycott TTAG for …. at least five minutes.

  14. Start tweeting, start emailing, start real mailing. This is do-able. I have a rep as a bit (for certain values of ‘bit’) of an @$$hole and even I wouldn’t have dared. I take it in the spirit I presume it was offered in, but how dare you, TTAG, for not just republishing the BBC Spaghetti Tree thing?

  15. i just finished determining that an scc article about rahm’s i.d. program was disingenuous.
    then i started reciting this e.o. to my wife who reminded me what day it was.
    doy. what a dumb ass.
    i am so butt hurt.

  16. On 1 Apr, ’95 I was driving home from my job as the overnight long term parking guy at Louisville airport when Ron Clay, a DJ since deceased, announced an emergency landing of a UPS 747 on I-265, one of the loops around L’ville. I drove that to get to the Dixie Dieway and home to Muldraugh, KY. Oh, how I cursed his name. He had a whole ‘war of the worlds, Orson Wells’ thing going on and I fell for it. I salute you, @$$hole.

  17. Sure are a whole lot of humorless people with their knickers in a twist today. Quite a bit of butthurt over a harmless joke.

    Y’all need some ballistic therapy, I think. Go ring some steel or bust some clay targets or something. Life is too short to be wound up so tight.

  18. You jerks. For a minute there I was going to hop in the car and rush to the SIG Sauer Pro Shop for my very first can.

  19. This is an unconstitutional article. Cruel and unusual punishment for daily TTAG readers.

    • Ever heard the story about the man who taught his asshole how to talk?
      I think he writes for TTAG now.

  20. Considering the date. Waste of time and in spirit actually mean.
    So many things promised none done to this day.
    At the rate Trumps going and lack of anything done towards firearms.
    2018 is just around the corner and they Trump wont be able to get a thing done after that at all.

  21. This is one action that needs Congress just so we don’t have another idiot who walks in and shits on everything with a stroke of the pen!

  22. Sometimes jokes work, sometimes they just don’t. Happens to everybody who provides daily content. You just have to shrug and move on to the next one.

    But, damn, commenters, what a bunch of humorless a-holes y’all seem to be.

    I suppose if you’re really upset, you can ask for a refund of what you paid for that post.

    • You know if this publication didn’t have the word “truth” in the very title we wouldn’t get so upset about being lied to.

  23. DAMIT I was checking on my CC limits before I got to the end….. I would of had more cans then the 6 pack of Miller next to me.

  24. You’re a bad bad man and you got me good. I was seconds away from sending the good news to all my friends.

  25. Yeah!!! The Elite hobbyists win!!! The 2nd Amendment is for rich and wealthy gun snobs, Yeah!!!

  26. The 2nd Amendment is for all lawful US citizens!!!All lawful US citizens will be able to exercise their rights! As any other US citizen in any other state!!! Which SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED, by any government entities!!! “Oops, April fools!!! “

  27. You know despite the spirit of April Fool’s day this is still reporting a falsehood, which serves no other purpose than to undermine this website’s credibility the remainder of the year.
    In short simply stop.

  28. So a prank comes before your credibility? Nice job. You need to change your name to ” The ‘Truthiness’ About Guns”, if you’re going to publish untrue click bait like this. Is anything published here today true? I’m not going to waste my time trying to find out. I won’t fall for your BS again. I have always come here to get the real stories about gun issues, but no more. Hope your still laughing.

  29. I found this stunt unprofessional and I imagined The Truth About Guns to be above this sort of immature behavior.

  30. Sooo many readers with no sense of humor. I would applaud Nick, but it was little over the top to be believable. My BS detector was cranked to 11 today and I have been actively looking for April fools “news”. This headline jumped at me as very suspicious and reading on just reinforced my feeling of “too good to be true”.

  31. Please get the Hearing protections Act passed
    HR367 and Senate bill S59
    As a Veteran with permanent hearing damage I encourage you to get this passed ASAP

  32. I guessed It to be an April fool’s joke, and didn’t even bother looking at it until today, but reading the reply’s made up for the wast of time reading the prank.

  33. I’ve always said April Fool’s Day is just an excuse for people to be assholes. I see I’m not wrong.

  34. Some people’s kids…. you’re a jackass. Hope Karma bites you in the butt for this one

  35. Dang you Leghorn. You got me, until the end.

    Seriously, how’s the progress in Congress on the HPA, anyway?

  36. Went straight to the comments to not waste my time. Yep, April Fool’s joke…wow, super funny..really…I am just rolling on the floor laughing right now…Great stuff, keep it up.

  37. The HPA is an April Fool’s joke on all who support it. Do you really not want to be able to tell where someone shooting at you from? Or even if they are shooting? This is a bogus gun manufacturer ploy to sell more dodads.

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