Warner, Kaine condemn GOP tax bill over gun silencer rollback
Virginia senators say repealing suppressor rules endangers public safety and benefits gun manufacturers
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Virginia’s Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, D-Va., are slamming the Republican spending plan moving through Congress, warning that tucked among its billion-dollar tax cuts for the wealthy is a dangerous gift to the gun industry that rolls back long-standing safety rules for firearm silencers.
In a blistering joint statement Thursday, the senators said the proposal would weaken gun laws that have been in place since 1934 by eliminating registration and ownership requirements for silencers, also known as suppressors — devices that muffle the sound of gunfire and make it harder for law enforcement to respond to active shooter situations.
“The Republican tax plan being pushed through Congress not only cuts critical services Virginians rely on in order to give huge tax breaks to billionaires,” Warner and Kaine said, “but it also makes our communities less safe by weakening gun safety measures on silencers.”
Though the change occupies just 12 lines in the nearly 400-page bill, the senators say its implications are severe.
If passed, the bill would repeal the $200 tax on silencer purchases, wipe out federal registration requirements for the devices and deliver millions in savings to gun manufacturers. The suppressor tax, part of the National Firearms Act of 1934, has been a core part of federal gun law for nearly a century.
The two lawmakers pointed to the 2019 Virginia Beach mass shooting — where a gunman used a silencer to kill 12 people — as a grim example of what can happen when these devices are used.
“Part of the reason that these registration and ownership requirements exist is because silencers, like the one that was used in the Virginia Beach mass shooting, make it harder for law enforcement to locate and respond to an active shooter,” they said.
Silencers are designed to reduce the sound, flash and recoil of a firearm, but their public safety risks have made them a focal point of debate. Law enforcement groups have long supported keeping suppressors regulated, arguing that they undermine gunshot detection technology and make it far more difficult to locate shooters in an emergency.
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, 4.5 million suppressors were registered with the federal government by the end of 2024, including 113,046 in Virginia. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates repealing the tax would cost the federal government $1.4 billion over ten years.
But for gun rights groups, even this deregulation isn’t enough.
The American Firearms Association called the move “nothing more than a crumb dropped from the King’s table,” and its Vice President Patrick Parsons said Republicans should go further by eliminating regulations on short-barrel rifles, abolishing the ATF and repealing the National Firearms Act altogether.
Warner and Kaine argue the silencer provision is just one piece of a broader bill they say would do massive harm to working families while lavishing the ultra-rich.
They warn that the legislation would strip health insurance from more than 262,000 Virginians, cut food assistance to over 204,000 people, raise energy costs across the state, and threaten more than 20,000 Virginia jobs.
They also noted the bill would eliminate a program that allows Americans to file taxes for free, raise taxes on minimum-wage workers, and blow a $3.8 trillion hole in the federal deficit — all while handing the top 0.1% of earners an average tax cut of $188,000.
“Americans deserve to feel safe in their communities,” the senators said, vowing to push back against “this disastrous bill” when it reaches the Senate floor.
This article first appeared on Virginia Mercury and is republished here with permission. Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence.
