Silencer Saturday #400: Silencer Shop Foundation

by Daniel Y

Published: October 4th, 2025

silencer saturday 400 silencer shop foundation

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to TFB’s Silencer Saturday, brought to you by Yankee Hill Machine, manufacturers of the new Victra-12 shotgun suppressor. This week, we are looking at the Silencer Shop Foundation (SSF). We previously covered the SSF’s lawsuit seeking to dismantle the National Firearms Act, but today we take a broader look at the organization.

Silencer Saturday @ TFB:

Disclaimer: Silencers are highly regulated in the United States. Be sure to understand all relevant laws, both at the federal and state levels. Failure to adhere to the laws can result in serious criminal penalties. If you are not in the US, be sure you understand the laws that apply in your situation.

What is the SSF?

The Silencer Shop Foundation is Silencer Shop’s nonprofit arm. Its goals include advancing suppressor rights, protecting hearing, and fighting outdated regulations. These goals have some obvious overlaps with Silencer Shop’s business aims. Making silencer ownership easier would lead to more customers taking the plunge into suppressor ownership, and those of us who already have many silencers would probably acquire more.

Making silencer buying easier has been a core part of Silencer Shop’s brand identity for many years. Their kiosk submission system took the previously paper-and-ink process of filling out Form 4s and made it digital. This included capturing fingerprints in a digital format instead of literal ink prints on paper fingerprint cards. Silencer Shop also helped popularize trusts as a silencer ownership method and makes them available as part of the suppressor purchase process.

SSF wants to make silencer ownership easier because suppressors are, at their core, a safety device. The uninitiated often think silencers are exclusively used by assassins and criminals to get away with their foul acts, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Legally owned silencers are used in crimes at a vanishingly small rate.

Noise pollution, like any other type of pollution, can either be controlled at the source or dealt with once it has entered the atmosphere. Once the sound of a gunshot is released, there is no filtering it back out of the air. The shooter and parties nearby should wear hearing protection, but that does not keep the next farm over from hearing gunshots. Controlling the sound at the muzzle before it radiates out is the best way to reduce sound pollution.

Unfortunately for Americans, these safety devices are regulated. Unlike earplugs, which anyone can buy anywhere, suppressors require a $200 tax stamp, fingerprinting, and the blessing of the federal government before you can take them home with you. SSF hopes to overcome these barriers with a blend of legal advocacy and education.

Current Goals & Initiatives

These objectives sound great, but how does SSF plan to actually pull that off? The ongoing so-called “Big Beautiful Lawsuit” seeks to remove silencers (and some other NFA items) from the NFA entirely. This would be a welcome outcome for many American suppressor enthusiasts. On top of the expense of paying $200 per suppressor for the right to possess each individual suppressor, dealing with the bureaucracy is never enjoyable. This is especially clear with the current (as of writing) government shutdown, which prevents ATF from processing paperwork.

But the Big Beautiful Lawsuit is not the only thing SSF is up to. Another effort is around changing laws at the state level. Because the United States has a federal system, states can do much of their own lawmaking. Laws differ in major ways between states across all kinds of topics. This includes silencers.

Silencers are not legally available in every state. Currently, 41 states allow ownership. Many of those states permit silencer use for hunting, but not all. SSF has plenty of work to do to get silencer ownership and hunting use legal in all 50 states.

[Mandatory picture of a gun with a silencer, in this case the Tisas Raider 45 with a Silencerco Hybrid]

Conclusion

SSF wants everyone to get involved and to “be part of the quiet revolution” as it works to make the regulatory situation better for American silencer users. People interested in supporting SSF can do so in many ways, including direct donations, educating others about silencers and their benefits, and purchasing suppressors through Silencer Shop where the profits go (in part) to supporting SSF. There will also be opportunities to support grassroots campaigns and state-level efforts to change legislation.

Thanks for joining us for the 400th edition of Silencer Saturday! We’ll be back next week for another installment.