Most people I know who are skipping suppressors aren’t going it because of the wait. They’re doing it because of the tax fee, needing a trust, fingerprints, and perceived complicated paperwork.Take this with a large grain of salt, but in talking to a couple local SOTs their ATF contacts told them (several years ago) the ATF has a (lofty) goal of getting down to a 17 day approval window. (and obviously we see how well THAT is going).
The interesting tidbit in those conversations was how much tax revenue the ATF was looking at and would come in if the process was that fast.
While I'm no fan of the need for approvals on suppressors in general, I'd bet there would be a pretty considerable uptick in suppressor usage if the process was a reliable 30 days or less.
Would be sweet if it could be brought down that low, though.