You can stick a fork in "deregulated" suppressors after yesterday's shooting...

Colin Noir, NRA commentator, playing with one of his toys

Before we begin, let's get a couple things off the table...

1.  Suppressors are legal...You just have to buy a tax stamp to get one...

2.  Suppressors are EASILY handmade with a minimum of knowledge easily found on the web...we're not talking about rocket science here.

Having said all that I'm still on the fence on this one.  I like the idea of the govt NOT regulating another piece of gear.  I love the idea of not having to wear ear pro (even though I should even with them) if I decide to sport one or two on my rifles.

But I also know the potential mayhem that could result if even a modestly trained individual equipped his rifle with them.  The problem?  People have terrible memories.  Remember the DC Sniper fiasco?  One sniper team in a properly equipped car caused mayhem.  A refresher via Wikipedia.

The attacks were carried out with a stolen Bushmaster XM-15 (AR-15 style) semiautomatic .223 caliber rifle equipped with an EOTech holographic weapon sight which is effective at ranges of up to 300 meters (984 feet) found in the vehicle.[32][33] The trunk of the Chevrolet Caprice was modified to serve as a "rolling sniper's nest". The back seat was modified to allow a person access to the trunk. Once inside, the sniper could lie prone with shots taken from a small hole near the license plate created for that purpose.[34]

I highly recommend you read the entire Wiki entry (here), we've talked about the chaos that a 8 man terror team subdivided into spotter/sniper could do if they launched simultaneous in several US cities and kept moving from locale to locale so we won't go over that nightmare scenario again.

But we need to touch on that possibility in light of yesterday's shooting.

What if the shooter yesterday had a suppressor?  He would be able to use the noise of the city to further hide his position.  Additionally suppressors provide flash suppression in addition to noise making the job of the personal security detail that much harder.

Now imagine a terror team modified a van with common sound suppression matting, had access to high quality suppressors and never stayed in one location long enough to raise suspicions and were willing to travel outside of one geographic location in the US.

I just can't decide if this is a "right" worth fighting in a ditch for.  I don't know if the juice is really worth the societal squeeze.

Making a suppressor isn't hard, but making a high quality suppressor is.  Do we really want to have that gear out in the wild for free?