In December, a Federal appeals court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency could not regulate lead ammunition used by hunters. A flock of 101 environmental pressure and advocacy group had sued the EPA in an attempt to force them to ban lead ammo lest the furry little creatures of the forest and the dell eat it. “‘We agree with EPA that it lacks statutory authority to regulate the type of spent bullets and shot identified in the environmental groups’ petition,’ Judge David Tatel wrote for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.” But the NRA-ILA doesn’t want to leave the matter to the vagaries of the judicial process . . .
They’ve just issued a press release trumpeting their support for the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2015 which would, among other things, enshrine into law that “ammunition, ammunition components, and fishing equipment are exempt from regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Toxic Substances Control Act.” Here’s the full release:
Bill Would Protect & Enhance Opportunities for Hunting, Shooting and Fishing
Fairfax, VA – On behalf of its five-million members, the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) today announced its support for The Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2015, introduced by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). This legislation seeks to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, shooting and fishing.
“Preserving our Second Amendment freedoms and hunting heritage is the core of the NRA’s mission. The Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2015 advances those efforts,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA-ILA.
Hunting and other outdoor sports continue to grow in popularity across America, as people seek the simple pleasure of being outdoors with friends and family. The Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2015 is a compilation of various legislative efforts that seek to increase opportunities for hunters, shooters and anglers by reducing regulations that prevent Americans from enjoying our outdoor heritage.
“On behalf of our members, I want to thank Senator Murkowski for her leadership on this issue. As a result of her hard work and determination, this important legislation is one step closer to becoming law and preserving America’s outdoor heritage,” added Cox.
The nation’s 15 million hunters spent $38.3 billion in 2011, helping to create 680,000 jobs. Sportsmen and women contribute another $1.6 billion annually to conservation through license and permitting fees and charitable donations.
Key provisions of the legislation include:
Hunting, Fishing and Recreational Shooting Protection – This important provision clarifies that ammunition, ammunition components, and fishing equipment are exempt from regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Toxic Substances Control Act. This provision is necessary because anti-hunting extremist groups have filed multiple petitions with the EPA to ban fishing sinkers and the use of lead ammunition for all purposes, not just hunting. Those petitions have been rejected, but the groups use the administrative rejections as an excuse to sue the agency in pursuit of the same restrictions.
Recreational Self Protection – This section would give law-abiding gun owners more access to carry firearms on land managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Making Public Lands Public – This section requires that 1.5% of the annual Land and Water Conservation Fund goes toward securing access for sportsmen to public lands that are currently either landlocked or otherwise significantly restricted.
Target Practice and Marksmanship Training Support Act – This section makes more funds available to state fish and wildlife agencies for the development of shooting ranges.
Bows Transported through National Parks – This provision will allow bows to be transported across national park lands. Currently, only firearms can be legally transported, which poses a practical problem for bow hunters who want to legally hunt on Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management lands, but must cross National Park Service lands in order to do so.
Careful. IIRC, the GOPA that ended up banning machine guns was 100% pro gun before being amended in congress with literally only a few minutes to spare.
Some idiot might try to sneak a rider onto this to give gun owners hell.
You can thank Charlie Rangel for that.
I am still astonished that that bass turd Charlie Rangel isn’t sitting in a Federal Penitentary somewhere. Must be because he’s a…..Democrat. Certainly isn’t because he’s black. Or is it??
I certainly don’t know.
Black and Democrat in Congress is like a damn invincibility star in Mario Bros.
We can also sneak in some riders of our own… Say a partial repeal of the NFA statutes on suppressors, SBRs, and SBSs. (Or possibly an opening of the machine gun registry.)
>”We”
>Implying that politics in USA is actually a team sport where what we peons want matters to anyone
>Implying that anybody in the House or Senate actually has a set of stones big enough to do that
>Implying that either side of the Ruling Party wants us to be as well armed as their Enforcer Caste
Appears still would allow the EPA thugs to eliminate lead production/processing before it assumes the shape of a projectile. See also the recent plant closure in Mo. For the chlluns.
That was the last remaining primary smelter. All the recycling plants are less regulated, since they prevent the lead from going to the landfill. Also of note, the majority of the U.S. lead supply is from recyclers.
That was a primary smelter. Unless you insist on only the purest virgin lead, you quite likely have only used recycled lead, and there are plenty of places that do that.
Also, just like pulling out of Iraq, that was something the Bush administration set up, but happened under Obama.
Two fools who made the wrong decisions doesn’t automatically made it right. I also don’t believe the narrative that Obama couldn’t change a decision from the previous administration.
Funny, that, presidential admins routinely overturn and change previous admins and Congress’s “decisions”. Also hear these kinds of idiots screech about how Obolacare can’t be repealed. According to them no law has ever been repealed, so clearly Slavery, Prohibition and the ban on women voting are all still the Law Of The Land, since no law has ever been repealed according to the Democrat Party and the “leaders” of the Republican Party. Funny, that.
The purest lead is actually ancient Roman pipework and ship ballast lead.
In terms of background radiation levels, that is.
“Pb-210, however, has a 22.3 year half-life. When lead bars have lain underwater for 2,000 years, all of the Pb-210 has decayed, leaving “Roman lead” (or old lead) with a radioactive level roughly 100,000 times lower than is found in new lead.”
http://www.gizmag.com/relics-physics-archaeology-roman-lead/30032/
Looks like the NRA and those damn Republicans are trying to expand our rights and freedoms again.
Sad thing is, they are technically passing a law to preemptively protect our rights that the government had no right to infringe on in the first place.
Lead shot Duck Hunting…. please God make it so.
Sorry you have a short memory. It was 1991 when the ban started & it was the “U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service” not the EPA. They only did it because they were sued. This bill needs an amendment telling the “U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service” that they can’t ban lead for hunting waterfowl.
http://www.wildfowlmag.com/gear-accessories/shotguns/lead-shot-still-controversial-20-years-later/
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-06-27/sports/sp-20586_1_lead-shot
+1,000,000,000
B Fitts, I was thinking the same thing. More birds were killed and never recovered due to steel shot than killed because injesting spent lead shot….. By a large factor.
Please excuse a possibly dumb question from a non-hunter / non-shotgunner, but why the difference between steel and lead shot? Does lead bring them down faster?
It’s a physics thing. The lead is denser, meaning more weight per piece of shot, allowing it to retain its energy better. Also, the added weight means more energy per shot is put on target.
Nick is on point. Steel is about 80% as dense as lead, so a couple things work against you as a shot gunner for bird hunting. First retained energy. As Nick said, being lighter than lead, steel loses velocity much more quickly than lead, thus cutting down its effective lethality range. To make up for this, shotgun hunters applied the rule of two (or three in some instances), meaning if your normally used #4 lead shot on ducks, you would now use the larger #2 (or #1) steel shot since those pellets weighed the same. Seem simple right, well not so much… Since you were using larger shot that meant that you had less pellets in your pattern and thus your effective killing pattern was weakened. Also, steel being steel, you needed to push the velocities to extreme limits to maintain that lethality to common shooting distances which in the lead days were 40-50 yards. So the 2 3/4, baby magnum lead loads of 1 3/8oz #4 shot (186 pellets) at 1200fps that would drop ducks stone dead out to 60-65 yards were the thing of the past. Now you needed a 1 3/8 oz of #2 Steel shot (172 pellets) moving at 1450-1500 Fps to equate that old load. And to get that number of pellets in a shell, you now needed a 3.5″ shell to get the necessary pellets AND propellant to get that velocity… And oh by the way, even with that velocity, it STILL wouldn’t equal the lethality of the old 2 3/4″ lead load AND you could no longer use your heirloom A5, model 12 or other fixed, full choked barrel gun of yesteryear.
So yes, this is a VERY sore subject amongst waterfowlers who’ve had to deal with this bull crap going on three decades and those of us who hunted before and after the lead ban know that the ballistic deficiencies of steel has killed more game birds than the supposed toxicity of spent lead shot. Hopefully I’ve shed some light on the topic.
On top of being 2-3 times the cost of steel shot vs lead. plus if you have a random lead shot shell in your hunting bag and when you get checked by the game warden you can get fined out the mass just for possession when hunting waterfowl.
It also affects the shot pattern of a choked barrel. Choking steel shot can actually make it spread inconsistently. Where lead holds a tighter pattern, you get more kill shots at longer ranges. Switching to steel can have the effect of more wound shots at the same range. One would think this would be a factor in creating legislation on hunting.
I was under the impression that non-toxic shot was mandated by the migratory bird treaty act meaning we would have to back out of a treaty for lead duck shot….one of the reasons I am weary of the UN small arms treaty ever being passed.
If that was the case we would have to use non-toxic shot when Dove hunting, they are considered migratory game bird, so unless it was a treaty only dealing with waterfowl I think it an environmental revelatory issue.
EPA should have left well enough alone.
EPA funding should be cut by 90%, so they can only afford to focus on things which matter.
Good…BTW I saw a 2002 history channel(Modern Marvels) show on bullets that extolled the virtues of non-lead ammo and talked of the evils of PB. Without a shred of proof. Oh yeah +1 Accur81…
Yeah, back before they became the Ancient Aliens, 2012, end of the world, Bigfoot channel.
Wrong dell, Dan…wrong dell!
Am I the only one who wonders what the point of having that kind of magnification on a shotgun is? Slugs?
he is putting a slug in the shotgun, but i would think that’s a little big for a slug gun. then again around here there isn’t much over 100yrd (to hilly) that you would need a 3×9 on a shotty
Good eye! I didn’t even look at the shell he was loading.
I would be all excited about this, except it will now filter back through the judicial system and land in the smoke-filled backrooms of Congress where EPA will simply do as it pleases anyhow. And you also have to wonder how NRA thinks it will make money out of this, since that is their primary goal these days.
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