The Democratic Party listens to donors and drives voters further away. For Democrats to win, they need to convince some rural voters to vote for them.
First, erase the term “MAGA Republican” from your vocabulary.
Most rural voters don’t like that term, and they are very aware that it’s meant as a slur. You aren’t going to win anyone over if you call them names.
Second, Democrats need to build trust with rural voters that they can be counted on to do the right thing, follow the science, and not simply pander to their donors.
One of the bright spots in the Big Beautiful Bill was the elimination of a $200 sin tax on hearing protection for rural sport shooters. This was put in place in the 1930s primarily due to the increase in poaching during the Great Depression.
I’m talking about noise suppressors for guns (which anti-gun activists call “silencers,” even though they do no such thing), which are becoming part of the standard kit for a gun purchase due to the benefits they provide for the gun owner and those around them.
As a sports shooter, I wish everyone would use a noise suppressor.
Yet this is precisely the provision that Democrats chose to oppose, even though statistically suppressors have no impact on crime or shootings. At the same time, it offers a significant benefit in protecting sports shooters’ hearing.
Democrats should be laser-focused on convincing voters to vote for them. Not chipping away at rural voter trust. It gained them no new votes but certainly lost them swing votes.
While the $200 tax might not impact me, it does impact lower-income rural sportsmen, many of whom have multiple guns, which would require multiple suppressors. The tax unfairly hurts lower-income voters. To a person, every gun owner I know would like to have noise suppressors for their guns.
I also doubt that the tax would in any way deter a determined criminal. Felons, of course, can’t buy suppressors in any event, with or without a tax. In any event, a suppressor nearly doubles the size of a pistol, making it undesirable for criminals.
As far as I am aware, a suppressor has been used only once in a public mass shooting, and it had no impact on law enforcement response time or people’s ability to determine that a shooting was in progress. A suppressor reduces the sound to a level that does not damage your hearing, meaning to the level of a jackhammer or an ambulance siren.
In fact, in the one public mass shooting where a suppressor was used, witnesses reported “we kept hearing gunfire,” according to the Washington Post.
In 2017, Deputy Director Ronald Turk issued an internal white paper recommending loosening the regulation of suppressors due to the extraordinarily low rate of criminal misuse associated with suppressors.
At the time, the ATF reported that there were 1.3 million registered suppressors, yet there were only an average of 44 prosecutions per year for suppressors, or statistically 0%. And the majority of those 44 prosecutions were for possession, not the actual use.
Indeed, the ATF itself views suppressors as safety devices for members of the ATF.
The National Hearing Conservation Association stated in 2019 that “Although firearm suppressors do not completely eliminate the risk of [noise-induced hearing loss] from firearm noise, the risk can be significantly reduced…Therefore, [we support] the use of firearm noise suppressors as a form of an engineering noise control to reduce hazardous firearm noise exposures.”
Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control opined in 2011 that “…the only potentially effective noise control method to reduce students’ or instructors’ noise exposure from gunfire is through the use of noise suppressors that can be attached to the end of the gun barrel.”
Which is why you don’t see any data connected to the push back on eliminating the $200 tax. None exists.
Today, there are nearly 5 million registered suppressors. Yet, there has been no uptick in their use in crimes.
The Big Beautiful Bill was an elegant way for Democrats not to have to alienate rural voters, specifically on gun noise suppressors
Given the overwhelming data and science regarding the benefits of noise suppressors and their lack of any material use in crimes, why would Democrats oppose repeal of the tax when they knew they would lose the fight anyway?
All it did was show that they either do not understand or trust the science behind suppressors, or that they believe in movie magic. The only other option is that they are simply not telling the truth.
Because of donor money.
At a time when the Democratic party lacks a clear leader or leadership, individual Senators are left to defend their own turf and preserve their campaign funding sources. Even if their actions overall hurt the Democratic Party.
That is what happened here.
