“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”

As Mick Jagger famously sung in the Rolling Stones’ classic hit:

No, you can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime you’ll find
You get what you need

The House of Representatives passed One Big, Beautiful Bill aka the budget reconciliation bill very early this morning. It passed 215-214 with 2 Republicans voting no and 1 voting present. Included in the bill was a provision that removed suppressors from the National Firearms Act.

🚨Statement from NRA-ILA Executive Director @jcommerford on House Passage of the Reconciliation Bill pic.twitter.com/El3jQThc12

— NRA (@NRA) May 22, 2025

We wanted to get both the Hearing Protection Act and the SHORT Act in the final bill as sent to the Senate. We only got the Hearing Protection Act provision which removed suppressors from the National Firearms Act.

Is this a loss?

The answer is an unequivocal no.

As any trader in a Third-World market would tell you, the bidding process begins by asking for more than you reasonably think you can get. By asking for both the HPA and the SHORT Act it gave us room to bargain. While we wanted both, getting suppressors removed from the National Firearms Act is much better than what the Ways and Means Committee was offering which was a reduction of the tax to zero but with suppressors remaining registered in the NFA. In my opinion, if we had started the negotiations with only asking for the Hearing Protection Act then we probably would have only gotten the reduction in tax.

Thanks to a post by the American Suppressor Association, here is the final wording that the House voted to approve.

This now goes to the Senate where we must fight to keep this provision in the bill. It, of course, has riled up the gun control industry but that was to be expected.

Provided this passes the Senate and suppressors are removed from the NFA in their entirety I expect to see an explosion in the sales of suppressors as well as court battles in those states like Illinois, New York, and California that ban suppressors. I look forward to the latter as it is hard to argue against something that reduces overall noise pollution and is backed as a health safety device by the medical community.