The lack of attention by a U.S. House of Representatives committee to two important pro-gun measures has one gun-rights organization raising a red flag.
On May 5, Gun Owners of America (GOA) sent out a national alert to its members expressing concern over the House Ways and Means Committee’s lack of action on the Hearing Protection Act (H.R. 404) and the Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today (SHORT) Act (H.R. 2395). Both have been stalled in the committee for longer than GOA thinks necessary.
H.R. 404, introduced by Rep. Ben Cline, would remove suppressors from the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA), stripping away all regulation and eliminating the $200 tax stamp. H.R. 2395, introduced by Rep. Andrew Clyde, would prevent any future attempt to reintroduce the Biden administration’s unconstitutional pistol brace ban. The NFA was the actual law that the Biden Administration used to justify the pistol brace ban.
“You helped deliver a mandate to President Trump last November, and now we need the House Ways and Means Committee to help President Trump deliver on his campaign promise to restore the Second Amendment,” the alert stated. “Tell them to pass H.R. 404 and H.R. 2395 immediately out of committee to deregulate suppressors and ensure that a future anti-gun administration does not target pistol-braced firearms again using the archaic and unconstitutional NFA.”
As GOA pointed out in the alert, this isn’t only about the unconstitutional $200 tax Americans have to pay on suppressors, but is also about repealing all of the unconstitutional gun control schemes involved, like registration, waiting periods, fingerprints and more.
“Every day the House Ways and Means Committee does not move these bills, gun owners face archaic restrictions and possible prosecution for exercising their constitutional right to Keep and Bear Arms,” the alert stated. “We must act now. This Congress has the opportunity to be one of, if not the most pro-gun Congress since the ratification of the Second Amendment itself!”
GOA asked that members call the House Ways and Means committee at 202-225-3625 and direct their message to the majority.
“When we flood their office with calls, they will act,” the alert stated. “Congress pays attention when you take time out of your busy day to call them. A phone call to your Member of Congress is the equivalent of 100 people sending them a letter! Even if it’s after hours, leave a message.
“Urge them to move the Hearing Protection Actand theSHORT Act out of committee, as that will ensure that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is not treated as a second-class right. We need the committee to do everything in its power to make these bills into law and gut the National Firearms Act.”
Deregulation of NFA items will go the same way as term limits when it comes to Republicans, sure we’ll vote for bill “X”
It bears repeating:
No legislation which reduces federal burdens to firearm (and firearm accessory) ownership will pass until Republicans have at least 60 U.S. Senators in the U.S. Senate.
That is due to the U.S. Senate’s “Cloture Rule” which requires at least 60 U.S. Senators to agree to vote on proposed legislation before they can actually vote on its passage (at which point the legislation would only require 51 U.S. Senators to vote affirmatively to pass).
I’m not sure that it would pass even if they had 65 votes.…
Gotta go RINO hunting during primary season. More than a few southern states would be prime regions for running strong candidates against the ones that are essentially controlled opposition.
What’s your read on the chances that NY passes S5974?
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S5974
Requires a minimum of cool million bucks in liability for all gun owners.
Highly probable and working the various cost benefit scenarios for how long it takes to get an injunction. We saved a bit in case more extreme actions were needed but probably not hitting the relocation threshold just yet.
common cricket…It is those like you who drop to their knees to purchase a Gun Control Can then turn around and bark at Defining Gun Control by its History for a Gun Control History illiterate public, legislatures, courts, etc. In none of your posts is there ever a viable attack on the credibility of Gun Control. It is just rollover excuse sht like not having enough votes or anything that points to something or someone other than your cricket self.
Until the History of Gun Control is dissected in courts and legislatures in the manner the Second Amendment has been dissected means Gun Control the best pal Slavery and Genocide ever had will continue to enjoy Standing.
Debbie W.,
I bark at proposed strategies when no one provides any evidence that said strategies will be effective.
I will gleefully stand on the street corner yelling about the correlation between slavery and civilian disarmament when you provide evidence that it is an effective strategy.
How many times do I have to point this out?
1. You don’t need 60 votes, but it’s convenient for them that you believe this because it keeps the public from realizing that:
2. Even if you had 60 votes, or even 80 or 100, you wouldn’t get anything through. It’s not about the “rules”, it’s about the “decorum”. Everything else is secondary, including the Constitution itself.
It simply wouldn’t be proper to increase the access of plebs to things that might threaten government power. That might undercut the aristocracy and the self-identified aristocrats in the Senate sure as hell are not going undermine their own standing and power.
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If they cared about your rights, it would go like this:
Senator: I raise a point of order that the vote on cloture under Rule XXII for [pro-gun thing] is by majority vote.
President pro tempore: Under the rules, the point of order is not sustained.
Senator: I appeal the ruling of the Chair and ask for the yeas and nays.
*Yeas win simple majority vote*
President pro tempore: The decision of the Chair is not sustained. Under the precedent set by the Senate today, [Date], the threshold for cloture on [pro-gun thing], is now a majority. That is the ruling of the Chair.
[Pro-gun thing] is now up for a simple majority vote.
Or they could, you know, change Rule XXII.
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They don’t care about your rights, that’s why they don’t do this. It’s not a law or in the Constitution, it’s the Senate Rules, Rule XXII specifically, which the Senate can alter at will. The Senate doesn’t do that because pointing to that rule as if it’s a legal requirement and exploiting the ignorance of the public works well for them to maintain the status quo.
The only time the Constitution requires anything greater than a simple majority are for specifically specified things like impeachment convictions, expulsion of a member of Congress, overriding a veto/Presidential objections, approval of a treaty or to amend the Constitution.
Everything else, in this regard, is Senate Rule XXII.
When are you going to realize that the current iteration of the GOP cares not a wit about you? If it did, it would at least occasionally exercise power on your behalf when it had that power. It, quite literally, never does that.
Conversely the democrats have been equally unwilling to address this excerpt for judicial appointments which backfired on them hard during the 1st Trump term. To some extent the decorum and slowing things down would serve a purpose to temper the whims of congress but that largely went out the window when senators started being elected by popular vote instead of being governor appointments. It may be something to do once we have the voter rolls cleaned up and substantially fewer illegals to cast ballots though.
I placed the word “decorum” in quotes for a reason, because it doesn’t actually exist in this case. Instead it is a double standard meant to keep you from ever doing anything about your situation because it wouldn’t be “reasonable” to exercise power.
Democrats like Pelosi talking about decorum in Congress is coded language for going back to 1850 when they could beat you, knife you and shoot at you in the Well of the Senate for disagreeing with them and face no real consequences for their behavior.
Decorum is defined, ultimately, by consequences because that’s what defines the appropriateness of a type of conduct. You focus on “being nice” while they focus on power and they will win.
The hard truth is that if things continue apace, the things that actually need fixed in this country will not be fixed by the Trump Administration because you can hand the R’s Congress on a platter and they will not support Trump’s agenda because they care more about the opinions of their cocktail circuit and the NYT Opinion page than they do if you get murdered in the street.
Power’s meaningless if you refuse to exercise it.
I know what many think reading that. “But if we do it then they’ll do it too”.
They’re already doing it via activist judges and other methods. The only question is if you can see that.
strych9,
Your comment is spot-on and I am well aware of the details that you shared.
I was stating your point in a somewhat less obvious way.
I just reply with a screed on Rule XXII because every time someone says “60 votes” a bunch of numbnuts go full Sean Hannity.
For a bunch of logical, totally unemotionally driven, Constitution lovers, Conservatives sure are illogical, emotional and utterly uninformed on what’s in the Constitution. [For a never ending set of examples of the latter, follow Josie the Redheaded Libertarian on X and read her posts on Constitutional history, which are impeccably sourced and still argued into the ground by smoothbrains.]
So, like David Spade posing as a flight attendant, I break out the tack hammer and send out a fat guy to see if we can get some intelligence out of the bovines in the back rows.
It’s not even a Senate battle — the REPUBLICANS on the House Ways & Means Committee gutted the Hearing Protection Act. They reduced the tax to $0 but kept all the paperwork, registration, and restrictions as they are now — pretty much like the ATF’s bogus “free tax stamp” scam to get people to register their braced pistols as SBRs.
Keeping suppressors in the registry just about guarantees that any future Demoncratic majority would either outlaw suppressors completely or increase the tax to at least what it had been.
The Cloture Rule does NOT require at least 60 senators to agree to vote on a piece of legislation — the vast majority of bills are voted on without ever requiring cloture. Cloture is only required to cut off debate — it only becomes an issue if someone is willing to filibuster to stop the bill from being voted on. A filibuster stops all other business in the senate so it isn’t used nearly as often as you seem to imagine.
The Dems don’t need to filibuster pro-gun bills because the GOP are always willing to gut those bills in the name of “bipartisanship” before the bill ever reaches the floor.
Look at what the Republicans on the House Ways & Means committee just did to H.R.404 the Hearing Protection Act — the REPUBLICANS gutted the bill so that instead of taking suppressors out of the NRA and off the Registry they would just make the tax stamp free instead of costing $200. That would make suppressors slightly more affordable for the next few years, but keeping them on the registry means that any future Demoncratic majority could just ban them completely or raise the tax back to the original $200 or higher.