Interview with Josh Waldron of Silencerco on the HPA

The Hearing Protection Act (HPA) is the main bill now in the Congress to remove gun mufflers (silencers/suppressors/moderators) from the National Firearms Act.  The HPA is getting a lot of attention from the public, Congress and the media.  It has been the in the top ten of the bills viewed at the Congressional web site for many weeks.  For a while, both the 2015 version and the 2017 version, which are identically worded, were both in the top ten.

Josh Waldron, CEO of SilencerCo, was instrumental in getting the bill introduced into Congress.  He is one of the founders of the American Suppressor Association, the ASA.

At the shot show this year, I was able to interview Josh Waldron, CEO of SilencerCo.

Everyone is asking about the HPA.  What are your thoughts about it?

“HPA is a very important piece of legislation for us. It would really change the industry. It would do a lot for our company. But right now, we have to focus on getting the momentum, getting it through committee.  We have to get 60 votes in the Senate.

We have to really activate the grass roots, we have to get the letters in.  We have a lot to do.

At the end of the day, we are not going to make it in the first 100 day agenda. We are probably not going to make it in the first six months.

I don’t want people to lose hope. I think it is going to happen, but it is going to take a lot of heavy lifting, and we really need peoples support.”

You have an invitation to the inauguration of Donald Trump. Do you feel any relationship with President Trump?  Do you think you are operating on the same wavelength? 

I respect the man a lot.  I am a brash person, so is he. I say what is on my mind. I challenge the status quo, so does he.  We have these similarities. The reason I offered my support a long time ago, when it was unpopular to offer my support, was because I believe that he was the only one who was going to get in and make a change.  I really believed that he was the guy who was going to be able to do it.  We are all tired of politics the way they used to be. This is finally the only way we can go in and make legitimate change and bring something  back to some base level of what we think America should be.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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