The information you read on this board about suppressors is for the most part, bad. I am starting to get frustrated with the information posted and am probably just going to stop reading suppressor threads on this board. A couple years ago I pretty much stopped reading threads on this board regarding AR15s because of the bad information being passed.
If they are legal for you to own, buying one is very simple. You will read about hoops you have to jump through and all the paperwork you have to do etc.
First of all, there is no license and no permit. If you read a post that mentions licenses, the guy doesn't own a suppressor, has never owned a suppressor, doesn't know anyone that does own one and doesn't know anything about buying one.
What you need is a tax stamp. That tax stamp is the tax paid for that suppressor. It is a one time tax. It is not for anything else but that one suppressor. But, since it is for that suppressor, you can put that suppressor on any number of guns. Guns don't matter, The tax is on the suppressor.
Step #1 in the process is finding out if there is any local or state law prohibiting you from owning a suppressor.
Step #2 Assuming there was no law against you owning a suppressor then you need to pick out the suppressor you want. Find a class III dealer. Go there and make the deal on the suppressor. You need to buy the suppressor and your dealer needs get the suppressor before you fill anything out. The reason being, you need the serial number from the suppressor to put on the form 4. When you get the serial number, you can fill out the form and get the ball rolling.
The paperwork:
The whole process from beginning to end takes me about an hour. You fill out the form on-line as an Adobe Acrobat document. The form is one sheet, front and back. It is easier than filling out a yellow form at your gun dealer. You print out two copies. Then, if this hasn't taxed you to your limits, you head down to a store where you can get passport photos taken. A good way to do this is to take your own picture on a digital camera. You can then take your memory card from the camera to a drug store and print out a sheet of passport photos. Glue one on each copy of the form 4. Take a break from jumping through all these hoops. Maybe you could split up this HUGE workload and let a little kid glue the pictures onto the form. You sign the backs of the form 4s yourself and then have the sheriff or someone he delegates that to, sign both copies. I drop mine off and then have to wait to get the two forms back from the sheriff's office. He only signs them on one day a week. Thank God for that break in the action. I don't know if I could take this trauma without a break. While you are at the sheriff's office, you need to get two fingerprint cards. This takes another five minutes. Then you have to jump through the tremendous, horrible hoops of sticking it in an envelope and mailing it.
Then you wait for about three months to get it back from ATF. You will get one of the very form 4s that you sent them back with a stamp in the upper right hand corner. The stamp looks just like a postage stamp only the value is $200.
This is the form here:
http://www.titleii.com/pdf/010205-Form4.pdf
Fill in this form, on-line. Make sure you erase everything that might already be on that form that doesn't pertain to you. Your dealer will probably do this paperwork, but if not, this is where you find it. Filling it out is self explantory.
Being on that "list" was the main thing that kept me from getting a sterling years ago.
. I guess I know what I am getting myself for an early christmas present 
