Zach Clark is the first man in history to successfully register a potato as a suppressor with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), per the Reload.
Under the National Firearms Act (NFA) suppressors (often called "silencers") have to be registered with the ATF, and that means literally anything that can be used as a suppressor.
Case in point: Zach's potato:
This is a real thing. It actually happened.
And yes, you can use a potato to suppress weapons:
HOWEVER, the ATF will prosecute you for using an unregistered potato as a suppressor — especially when used in an armed robbery. 👇
The cost of registering homemade suppressors used to be cost prohibitive, coming in at a whopping $200 per registration.
However, Trump's Big Beautiful Bill lowered that fee to $0, which opened the flood gates.
From The Reload:
The ATF saw more NFA electronic registration requests on New Year's Day than at any time in its history ... ‘The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) informed NSSF that on Thursday, January 1, 2026, alone, an unprecedented surge in e-Forms submissions were being processed,' the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry's trade group, said last week. ‘That total was approximately 150,000 e-Forms.'
Zach, like many Americans, doesn't just want the tax stamp fee eliminated, but the entire registration process too.
He registered his spud for the sole reason of trolling the government to that end.
‘It's a good way to highlight to normal people that like, "Yeah, this is dumb,"' Clark said. ‘This whole law is kind of dumb.'
The potato has been assigned the serial number "TATE001".
(He still hasn't assembled the weapon though.)
‘As of this moment, I have the serialized washer, and I have the potato, but I haven't put it together,' he told The Reload. ‘There's a manufacturing buffer on that from approval; you have to wait. Plus, that's a whole thing of like, what is your manufacturing intent? Does it count when you'll buy the potato? Is it having any potato in your house? Any potato products?'
There are more questions that arise from the potato suppressor:
‘If you plant the registered potato and it creates more potatoes, are they under the same serial number?' he asked. ‘Or is that manufacturing?'
Clark is hopeful the ATF will get embarrassed about the attention his potato is drawing and revoke his registration.
‘What they would do if they did revoke it is — you have to give it back,' he said. ‘Okay, if you want to send an agent to my house to pick up this potato, that's even funnier. I'm all for it.'
Oh, by the way, it's not just potatoes getting approved.
Apparently, someone submitted the following image on his application for a homemade suppressor 👇
Our latest video 👇
