The U.S. gun industry is trying to shake off the Hollywood hit-man image of the gun silencer and re-brand it as a hearing-protection device in a campaign to roll back regulations that date to the 1930s.
Industry lobbying has led to more than a dozen states legalizing silencers for hunting since 2011. Now gun advocates are pressing Congress to repeal a Depression-era law that requires a screening process for silencer buyers that can take months — far more scrutiny than gun buyers face.
Sales of silencers — or "suppressors," as the industry prefers to call them — are booming. The number of silencers registered with the U.S. government more than doubled to 792,282 in February 2015 from 360,534 in March 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
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