Posted on 06/05/2017 7:11:49 AM PDT by marktwain
Governor Abbot has signed HB 1819 into law on May 26th, 2017. The law goes into effect on 1 September. The law makes Texas safe for silencer ownership if/when the Hearing Protection Act (HPA) is passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump. This is important because the Texas legislature only meets every two years.
The law removes silencers from the list of devices that are required to be on the BATF registry for NFA items, only requiring that people who own, manufacturer, transport, repair, or sell silencers in Texas be in compliance with federal law. From state.tx.us:
(a) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally
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or knowingly possesses, manufactures, transports, repairs, or | ||
sells: | ||
(1) any of the following items, unless the item is | ||
registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer | ||
Record maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and | ||
Explosives or classified as a curio or relic by the United States | ||
Department of Justice: | ||
(A) an explosive weapon; | ||
(B) a machine gun; or | ||
(C) a short-barrel firearm; [ |
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[ |
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(2) knuckles; | ||
(3) armor-piercing ammunition; | ||
(4) a chemical dispensing device; | ||
(5) a zip gun; [ |
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(6) a tire deflation device; or | ||
(7) a firearm silencer, unless the firearm silencer is | ||
classified as a curio or relic by the United States Department of | ||
Justice or the actor otherwise possesses, manufactures, | ||
transports, repairs, or sells the firearm silencer in compliance | ||
with federal law. | ||
(e) An offense under Subsection (a)(1), (3), (4), [ |
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or (7) is a felony of the third degree. An offense under Subsection | ||
(a)(6) is a state jail felony. An offense under Subsection (a)(2) | ||
is a Class A misdemeanor. |
Looking forward to getting an affordable can for my Ruger Mark IV 45/22.
EH?
The federal HPA would make silencers as easy to purchas as shotguns.
Texas law required silencers to be on a national registry to be legal. The new law in Texas removes that requirement so that when the HPA passes, Texans will be able to purchase silencers legally.
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