A couple of articles on suppressors from Gun Watch, including that in New Zealand a 12-year-old can buy a suppressor over the counter in a hardware store for $20. Of course the civilian disarmament advocates will counter with the argument that due to that "permissiveness" there is a huge amount of crime in New Zealand committed by 12-year-olds using suppressors... except, well, there isn't any, by anyone of any age, so... GUNS! GUNS WITH SUPPRESSORS!
I'm sure the majority (all?) of the Hawaii legislators will oppose legalizing hearing safety devices for some absurd, illogical and totally-lacking-in-evidence "reasons"... as they do with registration, waiting periods, magazine capacity limitations, "assault pistol" bans, stun gun bans, CCW license
bans lying failure to issue to a single person, etc., etc., etc.
[By the way, I did ask Senator Gabbard to submit a suppressor legalization bill (along with the "shall issue" CCW bill and the handgun mag capacity of 17 bill) but he declined, citing this national legislation (though of course it doesn't solve Hawaii's illegal status for them).]
https://gunwatch.blogspot.com/search?q=new+zealand+suppressorExcerpt:
In 1934, the Franklin Roosevelt administration was able to pass omnibus gun control legislation, with massive infringements on the Second Amendment. It was the National Firearms Act. The law was primarily designed to eliminate the private ownership of handguns. That was too much of a direct assault on the Second Amendment for Congress, which removed handguns from the bill. The remainder of the act passed, creating a bizarre law with unintended consequences.
For obscure and unknown reasons, gun mufflers, also known as silencers, or suppressors, were included in the act. Silencers immediately changed from being a $10 accessory, available over the counter, to becoming an item requiring a federal tax stamp costing $200. The tax stamp required an intrusive and time consuming application process. $200 in 1934 would be $3,600 today. As another measure, $200 was 5.7 ounces of gold in January, 1934. That was by legislative fiat. In December of 1933, it would have been 10 ounces of gold. If you use gold as the standard, 5.7 ounces of gold would be worth $7,400. It was common for a day laborer in 1934 to be paid $1 a day. People worked long days, six days a week. The tax on a silencer was about the yearly pay of a minimum wage worker of the time. It was not a tax. It was a prohibition.
The rest of the world did not share America's self imposed prohibition on gun mufflers. In the rest of the world, silencers were regarded as a useful accessory, something that the neighbors appreciated because it reduced noise pollution.
In Europe, silencers are far less regulated than they are in the United States. In New Zealand, a 12 year old can walk into a hardware store, pay $20, and walk out with a perfectly serviceable commercial silencer.