With no fee for NFA items like suppressors and short-barreled long guns, Americans are jumping at the opportunity to get things they likely always wanted, but didn’t want to have to fool with the tax stamp on. Let’s be real here, even in today’s money, $200 isn’t exactly pocket change.
So, they’re taking advantage of the tax going away and embracing it.
Sure, they still have to register them, but while that is working its way through the courts, it also offers up a golden opportunity for some weapons-grade trolling.
For example, one gentleman registered a potato.
“TATE001”
That’s the official serial number of what appears to be the first legally registered 9mm potato silencer, according to a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) registration form obtained by The Reload. It’s registered to a man named Zach Clark, who said he pulled off the feat as an act of defiance against the National Firearms Act (NFA).
“It’s a good way to highlight to normal people that like, ‘Yeah, this is dumb,’” Clark told The Reload. “This whole law is kind of dumb.”
The spud suppressor may be the most remarkable result of the NFA tax cut enacted at the beginning of the year as part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which made the cost of registering suppressors $0 and opened up the floodgates. The ATF saw more NFA electronic registration requests on New Year’s Day than at any time in its history. The lower cost of compliance, combined with a recently-digitized process, has made new kinds of suppressors–including disposable or even meme designs–more viable than before.
…
While the NFA requires registration of all sound-suppressing devices that attach to a gun barrel to be registered with the ATF, it provides a process for people to register their own homemade designs. In the same way that somebody buying a suppressor from a store would have to fill out an NFA registration form and get the ATF to approve it before taking possession of the device, a home builder has to submit their intent to build one and get approval before actually constructing the device.
Hence, the spud suppressor.
Basically, Clark serialized a washer, and he bought a potato. He hasn’t assembled them yet, because the suppressor isn’t registered, and there’s a whole thing about what will actually count as the suppressor, but this is glorious.
It’s so freaking stupid that it’s hilarious, because as Clark noted above, the whole law is pretty stupid.
But, for all the humor, there’s actually a serious side to this.
While Clark’s registration effort is something of a troll, gun-rights lawyer Matt Larosiere noted it isn’t entirely a laughing matter.
“The terms ‘firearm silencer’ and ‘firearm muffler’ mean any device for silencing, muffling, or diminishing the report of a portable firearm. So, the definition is pretty broad with respect to a silencer itself, as opposed to the definitions covering silencer parts,” Larosiere, who has dealt with many NFA registrations over the years, told The Reload. “We can see this going way back to ATF’s precursors deeming the XM177 moderator a ‘silencer,’ even though it barely reduced muzzle report. On the other hand, we’ve seen ATF consistently take the position in determination letters and when giving expert testimony, that a pillow or potato, when used ‘for’ diminishing the report of a firearm, are in fact ‘silencers.’”
What doesn’t matter to the definition of a suppressor is just how much the report of a firearm is reduced. Literally any reduction at all is enough for it to be considered a suppressor, and while potatoes as silencers sounds stupid, the reality is that people have actually tried this. Some have experimented with it for YouTube content, but others have actually tried it in crimes.
So, if Clark wants to use a potato as a suppressor, even for the meme potential, what he’s doing is literally what one has to do in order to use produce as a suppressor.
Let’s think about that for a moment.
I can walk into the grocery store right now and get a potato. It’s not a controlled item in any way, and depending on the side of the potato, it’s only a couple of bucks at most. If I grow them in my garden, I can get them for even less. And if I want to put it on the end of my AR-15 or some other firearm and shoot it, I am legally required to register it with the ATF first.
A potato.
There’s no mention as to whether this applies to attaching Brian “Tater” Stelter to your barrel as well.
This is stupid, funny, and kind of sad, all in one fell swoop. Pretty impressive, actually.
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