When we run into an entrenched, bureaucratic problem, such as how to purchase a suppressor, the easiest way out it is to find someone who has been through the maze. Even better is to find someone who has made it his mission to guide you through. When it comes to buying suppressors, Brandon L. Maddox, founder of Silencer Central, is such a sage, so we sat down with him for this video.
Maddox is a pharmacist with an MBA who got into varmint hunting when he moved to South Dakota years ago. He found that using a suppressor upped his game, but he had trouble navigating the system to get one. He also wasn’t happy with the product that was then available to him. So he went and built Silencer Central.
“When I bought my first silencer, the purchase process was beyond painful,” says Maddox. “The gun store worked hard to convince me not to buy a silencer because they hated doing all the paperwork! The owner’s son was the only one allowed to ‘work with silencers,’ so the process was beyond broken locally. This severely flawed buying experience set the stage for getting licensed and creating what is now Silencer Central.
“I found that the entire process was a mystery. Everything I read online was conflicting and inaccurate. I made the statement years ago that everything online about the silencer process was inaccurate, which at the time was true. I just decided one day to become an expert on the silencer laws and the processes to better understand the Class 3 mystery,” says Maddox.
So he hired former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) employees and read everything he could find on silencer laws. He also worked with NRA lobbyists to work to change state laws so more Americans who want to make their guns more polite—and to reduce recoil—could buy suppressors. Now 42 states have gotten out of the way so that citizens’ can suppress the noise from their firearms.
As the ATF has gone through changes with how it deals with citizens who file required paperwork to purchase and own suppressors, we knew it would be helpful for Maddox to explain.
