Registering a room or cardboard box

[TXAZ]

It was an interesting discussion, but brought up a question:
If a person was target shooting and didn't want to wake / scare / annoy the neighbors, and moved inside a building and shot through the window, or shot through a 'tunnel of boxes' for the purpose of reducing the audio signature, wouldn't that technically put the room or box in the NFA realm?

[Lucas McCain]

I don't quite understand the question. Why would shooting, I am assuming you're shooting from your gun room and you own the property, would that come under NFA?
I think it would be more under local zoning and local ordinances that would apply. Also are you operating a business at the location?

[TXAZ]

Hi Lucus
I believe that the NFA regulations require registering any "portable" device designed to muffle or diminish the report of a firearm.
So the question is does anything from a box to a double wide mobile home have to be registered if its use is intended to muffle or diminish the report of the firearm.

[Bill DeShivs]

I believe it has to be attached to the weapon, or "attachable" before it comes under the purview of the NFA.

[4thPoint]

18 U.S.C., § 921(A)(24)
The terms “firearm silencer” and “firearm muffler” mean any device for silencing, muffling, or diminishing the report of a portable firearm, including any combination of parts, designed or redesigned, and intended for use in assembling or fabricating a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, and any part intended only for use in such assembly or fabrication.

A firearm that can't be fired except in a fixed room isn't exactly 'portable', otherwise every indoor firing range would meet the definition.

[Lucas McCain]

Thanks for the explanation, now I understand.
My answer now will be that it's going to depend on your lawyer and the judge of the court you are in, if it comes to that. Common sense, logic and practicality does not apply.
Case in point is the district court ruling for wolves in the Great Lakes Region. The judge put the wolves back on the endangered species list 12/19/2014 because she didn't understand the recovery program. The target goal was a population of 1400, we presently have 4600 wolves in the state. It was a big success, evidently not big enough for the judge and HSUS.
So the moral of my story is don't give them any ideas, they think enough of them up on their own to use against us.

[Skans]

I have wondered how hard it would be to create a silencer "box" that straps onto your hand and engulfs a small pistol which would effectively suppress the sound of the firearm. Even something like a fiberglass filled milk-jug that straps onto your wrist. Hey, it doesn't attach the firearm, therefore it can't be a silencer....right?

[musher]

The language of the definition in law doesn't speak to whether or not the device is attached to the firearm.

My read is that a device used to silence the report of a portable firearm would not include a room with a window, but would include a cardboard box if it were used in that way.

The DC snipers shot from inside the trunk of their car in part to muffle the report of the shots. I wonder whether prosecution of them for manufacture/possession of an unregistered silencer was contemplated.

[dakota.potts]

The definition of portable begs the question: if you had a firearm permanently attached to a permanent structure like a building and a uniquely manufactured suppressor machined to fit that gun and no other, could you suppress it without paperwork?

[johnwilliamson062]

THis issue was brought up once before and if I remember correctly someone pointed to case law or an ATFE opinion that required the item to be attached to the firearm. I believe it was in relation to the concrete pipe used at some long range shooting facilities.

[tirod]

The ATF is not intruding into the business of architects by having their buildings registered under the NFA.

Note carefully how they are NOT in charge of range construction, which when properly done does suppress the sound of gunfire. No authority exists in their charter to examine building drawings and conclude a firearm shot thru a combination of ingress/egress openings and interior partitions constitutes the use of a suppressor.

Not to forget every pillow made and sold in the United States would require an NFA stamp. As would any blanket wrapped around the muzzle, or coat, or even a pair of jeans. Every article of clothing would then require an NFA stamp for the exact same reasoning that a car trunk or concrete tube did.

The intent of those objects is by design to be something other than a suppressor. The ATF looks at intent of the design. That is why the CAR-15 modulator is a suppressor, but a linear compensator is not.

More modern case in point, the use of an oil filter as a suppressor. IIRC the ATF now concludes the barrel mounting bushing as a suppressor. That is it's intent. The oil filter isn't - they aren't requiring the millions of oil filters made and sold every year to have a separate NFA stamp. But - affix it to the end of the muzzle, and the intent and purpose of the oil filter changes. it's not on a motor doing it's designed job. It's been repurposed for the intent of being a suppressor, which then falls under the '34 NFA.

You better then pay and have a stamp for it.

And that doesn't even scratch the surface of the speculative discussion of "constructive intent" in which an owner has parts in close proximity to make an NFA device. Pad the trunk of a car to put a sniper in it where sound is suppressed to commit a crime, I would think some prosecutors will be using it to work against the accused.

It may sound like we are now tilting toward thought crimes and exercising prior restraint. Hard to conceive some would go that far, but when your job is to protect the public, the motto lately is "Yes we can!"

[Lark]

I read a letter that another person obtained from the ATF saying that a large portable box or barrel into which a gun barrel was inserted for the purposes of noise abatement was not a silencer. I think the ATF is only interested in portable silencers that attach to a gun barrel.

lark

[HankB]

Some years back, Handloader magazine had an article detailing construction of a large box out of plywood and lined with fiberglass, to be used as a range silencer. IIRC, the box was a couple feet square in cross section and five or six feet long, and didn't attach to the firearm in any way. No NFA issues were encountered.

I've also read that a tall stack of old tires, bound together and tipped sideways, would accomplish almost the same purpose - muffling sound that left the range.

[Jo6pak]

The tires work pretty well.
Just make sure that there is no water sitting in the tires when you fire a 7mm Mag with a muzzlebrake inside your "tire muffler"....don't ask me how I know, I just do.

[dwwhite]

^^^^^^^
Some things just make a guy smile.