Suppressors come up constantly around here — at the counter at Sportsman's Warehouse, on the range when someone shows up with a can on their 10/22, and especially in those half-informed conversations where someone swears their buddy told them there's a loophole. Worth laying out what's actually true for Idaho owners and anyone thinking about getting into the NFA game.

"The resolution says suppressor restrictions enacted in the 1930s 'put the hearing health of gun owners at risk.'"

The Idaho legislature isn't wrong on the merits here. I've watched guys double-stack foam plugs under muffs at an indoor range for years because the noise is genuinely damaging — and a suppressor would still leave them at jackhammer-level decibels. Calling it a hearing safety issue isn't spin, it's just accurate.

"These aren't the things that you see in the movies in Hollywood, where the dramatic assassin goes in and silently deals death with a firearm. This simply reduces the noise so it does not cause potential damage to your hearing. But it's not a silencer, it's a suppressor."

Sen. Lakey said what every shooter already knows but apparently needs to keep being said out loud to legislators. A suppressed .308 at a prairie dog shoot is still loud enough to get your attention from 200 yards away — nobody's sneaking up on anything.

This is one of those situations where getting your legal information from a neighbor or a forum post can land you in federal prison. If someone tells you that an Idaho-made can doesn't need a stamp, they are wrong.

The Idaho Firearms Freedom Act stuff circulates every few years like a bad cold. I've heard it at the gun shop counter, I've seen it on forums, and it's dangerous misinformation every single time. Federal courts have been consistent — state statutes don't override NFA regulation, full stop. The penalty for getting this wrong is 10 years federal, not a fine and a slap.

The HPA reintroduction by Crapo is the real story here if you care about where this is heading — 28 Senate co-sponsors and Idaho's own legislature formally on record is more momentum than we've seen in a while. But "more momentum than before" still isn't law, and the Form 4 wait is still very real.

For those of you who've gone through the NFA process for a suppressor — was the wait time what actually held you back, or was it something else?

Read the full article in The Handbook →