The Department of Justice is rethinking its position on suppressors. Considering just how terrible the previous position was, that’s a very good thing. I mean, even if you think suppressors should continue to be regulated as NFA items, saying they’re not arms and thus aren’t protected under the Second Amendment is kind of stupid.

Well, not “kind of.” It’s just stupid.

So it was good news when the DOJ asked for 30 days to rethink their position.

But let’s say they go where many of us would like. What would happen then?

I tend to think that it’s entirely possible the inclusion of suppressors on the NFA would be overturned by the courts. After all, if both the government and the plaintiff agree that the law is unconstitutional, not many judges are going to be comfortable going against both sides like that. I’m sure some will, but not all of them.

Yet there are other possibilities, too.

“If Trump administration decides not to prosecute people under for illegal silencer possession while in office, that’s a good short-term win, that’s what a lot of gun rights activists will want,” said Stephen Gutowski, a gun safety instructor and founder of The Reload.

However, Gutowski added that if Democrats regain the White House in four years, “They can just reverse the policies and go back and start prosecuting people again, because the law was never found unconstitutional or invalid.”

Gutowski is correct, but that’s only if they decide to just let everything die. If they take a position in court that the law is unconstitutional and the judge agrees with that position and overturns the law, that’s something different. An anti-gun administration down the road would have to find a new way around that decision, which would create difficulties.

And they would most definitely try to do that, because the anti-gunners are losing their minds at the possibility of suppressors out and about in the public sphere.

Gun safety groups, for their part, say that silencers put people at risk by make a mass shooting harder to hear and contend that because silencers reduce the recoil when a gun is fired, it could make it easier for a gunman with a semiautomatic to shoot with fewer interruptions.

“Silencers in the wrong hands create serious public safety risks,” Everytown for Gun Safety writes on their website. “The loud and distinctive noise that a gun makes is one of its most important safety features: when people hear it, they realize they may need to run, hide, or protect others.”

The group also raises concerns that removing silencers from the NFA would allow them to be purchased without a background check.

I get that fear. However, if gun control works as well as Everytown likes to claim, why would it matter? A suppressor without a gun is just a metal tube with some oddly shaped stuff inside. It can’t be used for anything except maybe as a club. If gun control works, then suppressors aren’t an issue.

But Everytown knows that gun control doesn’t actually work.

Plus, it’s also clear that everything they know about firearms, they learned from television and movies. Gutowski is quoted as pointing out that the nearly whisper-silent gunshot you see out of Hollywood isn’t how suppressors work. They often aren’t even enough to suppress the sound to the point you can shoot without hearing protection.

It’s only on the screen that a suppressor makes every gunshot imperceptible to even other people in the room.

In short, their entire argument falls apart upon just a slight examination.

But it also means they will try to undo anything the Trump administration does to restore suppressors to where they should be. Luckily, we can see it coming. Hopefully, Bondi sees it, too.