Gun silencers or solvent traps:
Why homemade gun devices
are back in ATF's crosshairs

In a blurred cellphone video that would later go viral, federal officers knock on a Florida gun owner's door, demanding he turn over an illegal device they claim he bought as a silencer for his AR-15 rifle.

The man, Nick Vitiello, pushes back.

"Your entire job is to take away peoples' guns … and erode the Second Amendment," Vitiello told the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents on his doorstep. He throws out ATF failures like swear words: Waco, Ruby Ridge, shooting dogs.

"You've been watching too many shows and reading too many books," the agents respond. "I'm sure we'll find you again someday."

The standoff last year and its popularity online exemplify rising tensions over the agency's yearslong struggle to keep up with do-it-yourselfers who find ways to skirt federal restrictions.

Late last month, the ATF tried to remove any confusion about devices marketed as "solvent traps" to catch excess cleaning fluids. Most actually are silencers, which are regulated by the National Firearm Act of 1934 – and banned in some states.

It's one of a string of controversial decisions related to add-on devices for firearms. In 2018, after a mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music festival the year before, the agency banned bump stock devices. It has cracked down on stabilizing braces, forced-reset triggers and "Glock switches" that can make a semi-automatic handgun capable of automatic fire.

For dedicated gun enthusiasts and the gun lobby, the moves all fall under the same category: It's no conspiracy theory – they're coming for our guns. .....