“Shooting without a suppressor is just uncivilized.” — Ethan Lessard
I know nothing about the process of obtaining a suppressor. I have never been through the process, barely know what is required—besides money, a headache-inducing load of paperwork, and a background check—and couldn’t, for the life of me, tell you where to start.
I have friends that own suppressors, and it’s not a big deal, but I never got the play-by-play on the process they went through to get theirs, beyond hearing about how long they were waiting to get approved—and it being “in jail” at the local dealer.
There is, I’ve heard, a trust that’s involved, or can be, but that sounds like lawyers. And lawyers sound a lot like money…a lot of it.
For the most part I did not care about this process because with wait times measured in months and years (or at least over one year), just to get your paperwork through the federal bureaucracy, what was the point?
Somewhere in the COVID era that all began to change…for the better. Suddenly the paperwork processing times started dropping.
At the April 2023 NRA Show in Indianapolis, you could literally see the upsurge in suppressor demand in the Silencer Central booth where attendees were lined up several deep to buy.
Reflecting on that enthusiastic activity on the show floor, I wrote:
But perhaps nothing compared to the frenzy at the Silencer Central booth where they were helping customers prepare and submit their ATF eForms for suppressor purchases. Customers were backed up into the booth as they waited their turn at the two banks of laptops and digital fingerprint scanners used to process paperwork which is now taking on average 270 days for the ATF to process.
Two years ago we were down to nine months, and that was shorter than in previous years when that same wait may have been closer to 18 months or more.
Today it’s an absurdly short wait. Paperwork, once submitted, is getting approved in just, well, let’s just say it’s real, real fast.
Now that it’s down to the point where it takes less time to get approved for a suppressor than it does to get a cross country letter through the mail, I suddenly see the value in getting one and joining the ranks of what my friend Ethan would call the civilized shooter.
But exactly how did we get from a bureaucratic eternity of a wait time to a few days? Nobody ever accused Washington bureaucrats of moving fast, and this certainly included the ATF.
Well, it’s pretty much thanks to the work of Silencer Central, and in particular its founder and CEO Brandon Maddox.
In a nutshell, Maddox wanted to buy a suppressor, and after facing the various hurdles to obtaining one, he decided to dig deep into the all the laws and processes that go into suppressor ownership.
Maddox’s background is in pharmaceuticals, and in case you didn’t know this, that is an immensely regulated industry where everything is tracked and highly controlled.
Maddox figured that if you can legally and effectively distribute legal pharmaceuticals, with all the federal regulation and paperwork involved with that, then why can’t it be done with suppressors?
Maddox built Silencer Central to be a one-stop-shop for suppressor purchases, covering everything from the formation of a trust for the buyer, the fingerprinting, eForm submission to ATF, 4473 submission, LEO notification, transfer and shipment of the suppressor directly to the end-user.
That’s no small feat. It is a sea change in how we now buy suppressors. This streamlined process has gotten us to the point where, in my case, I registered for eForms and reviewed the ATF documents that were submitted on June 16.
On June 17 I received notice that my suppressor was approved. Then on June 18 I eSigned the 4473. June 18 notification went out to the chief law enforcement officer in my county which started the requisite seven day wait—which is time for local law enforcement to review and, presumably, address any issues.
Then on June 26 I was notified that Silencer Central was preparing to ship my suppressor to their licensed location here in Arizona. Silencer Central has this type of staffed facility in every state where suppressors are legal to sell.
Shipping notification came in on July 2, and on July 3 the new Banish 30-V2 was delivered right to my door. That’s 17 days from start to finish, and most of that time is made up of the seven day law enforcement hold and the shipping transit time.
And, most importantly, this was all done from the comfort of my couch. I did have to get up off my ass to answer the door and sign for the suppressor when it arrived, but other than that did the least amount of physical exertion required to buy one of the most highly regulated items a gun owner can buy—and that’s without skipping a single regulatory step.
A couple notes about the Silencer Central process. The communication from the company during this period was absolutely outstanding. There was never a time where I wondered when I was going to hear from Silencer Central. I got emails and text messages notifying or reminding me that I needed to complete, review or sign a form.
I even dragged my feet on the very front end of the whole process just to see what happens. Silencer Central kept texting and emailing to make sure I knew what was needed. And, while I did almost everything from my laptop, I could have called their customer service team at any time and gotten the help I needed.
Another aspect of the process I gladly took advantage of was having Silencer Central set up a trust for me—which they do for free. The trust allows me to add friends so that I can give them my suppressor so they can legally have it in their possession at the range.
The trust also allows me to pass on the suppressor when, you know, I pass on.
If you’re thinking about buying a suppressor but you were always intimidated by the regulatory process, you need to let go of that apprehension and head over to SilencerCentral.com.
And now is the time to do that, because through July 31 Silencer Central will cover your $200 tax stamp. But today’s the 31st isn’t it too late, you ask? Well, I have it on very good authority that this Friday, August 1, Silencer Central will announce a continuation of the $200 free tax stamp promotion, along with additional suppressor brand partners.
In other words, the summer of free tax stamp love continues to roll along.
— Paul Erhardt, Managing Editor, the Outdoor Wire Digital Network