Eight years ago, NRA filed comments in support of the Trump Administration’s plan to reform exports of firearms and ammunition – as well as their parts, components, and accessories. This initiative not only helped make America’s best-in-class goods more competitive on the world market, it alleviated red tape, headaches, and ambiguity for Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights here in the U.S. While we were effusive in our support for the effort, we did point out one notable omission: firearm sound suppressors. With joint Interim Final Rules released on July 22 by the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls at the U.S. State Department and the Bureau of Industry and Security at the Commerce Department, that omission has been corrected.
Export Reform was based on the commonsense idea that not every item with a potential military use needed the same level of oversight when being exported from the U.S. to markets overseas. The effort was guided by a saying from former national security advisor McGeorge Bundy: “If you guard your toothbrushes and diamonds with equal zeal, you’ll probably lose fewer toothbrushes and more diamonds.” In other words, wasting the highest level of oversight on items that hundreds of millions of Americans and foreign civilians already have in their homes does not support domestic or international security.
The point was to build “a taller fence around a smaller yard” by distinguishing export rules between items that provide critical military or intelligence advantages to the U.S. or are “inherently military” and items that, while having some military utility, are commonly available from places like Cabela’s and Walmart. The former would get stronger controls under the State Department (DDTC), which is primarily concerned with national security and foreign affairs. The latter would get more relaxed controls under the Commerce Department (BIS), which has the dual role of promoting U.S. businesses and ensuring adequate levels of export oversight.
The project involved multiple rulemakings over a period of years. Among the last of the items to be moved from DDTC’s jurisdiction to that of BIS were commonly-available firearms, ammunition, and related items. These included most rifles, shotguns, and handguns commonly available in gun shops and sporting goods stores, including some big box retailers. Suppressors, however, were not included.
NRA noted at the time that the retention of sound suppressors under DDTC jurisdiction was contrary to the guiding principles of Export Reform and did not serve its purposes. “Suppressors should also be moved to [BIS control] unless they are specifically designed for use only with firearms that remain under [DDTC jurisdiction],” the comment urged.
In support of this position, NRA noted that suppressors had been commercially available since the first decade of the 1900s; their design and technology are in the public domain and widely understood throughout the developed world; they do not increase the lethality of firearms; and they are in use by many millions of civilian firearm owners throughout the world. We concluded there is nothing inherent in suppressors’ design or operation that gives America any critical military or intelligence advantage, as all peer countries have them and many allow their use with even fewer internal controls than are required in the U.S.
As things often do with the U.S. government, it took some time for the relevant factors to align. But the comments of NRA and similar groups were eventually heard loud and clear and have now been adopted by the government itself. According to the DDTC rulemaking:
[T]he Department now assesses that firearm silencers, mufflers, and suppressors, other than those specially designed for fully automatic firearms, no longer provide a critical military or intelligence advantage based on the sum of the following factors: growing global adoption of firearm suppressors for civil uses; the reported benefits associated with reduced firearms noise; the existence of numerous foreign manufacturers of such items; and the Department's assessment that barriers to acquiring the instructions, materials, and skills to effectively manufacture these items have become appreciably lower.
As we noted earlier when reporting on similar reforms affecting firearms and ammunition, the moves do not mean suppressor export will suddenly be deregulated. It will continue to be carefully controlled and subject in most cases to strict licensing requirements, including case-by-case review to assess national security and regional stability factors.
In addition to benefitting U.S. based manufacturers of suppressors, the move will ease temporary exports of covered suppressors for U.S. citizens traveling overseas for hunting and sporting purposes and for some job-related travel.
Comments on the IFRs will be accepted at regulations.gov (here for DDTC and here for BIS) until Aug. 24, 2026. No doubt the usual gun control suspects will make their displeasure known (even though the products will actually be leaving the country in most cases), so supportive and constructive comments will benefit this long-sought reform effort.
NRA appreciates the Trump Administration’s leadership in this important effort and encourages gun owners and Second Amendment supporters to weigh in with their approval and any technical observations that could improve the rules.
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