BY Herschel Smith
9 years, 10 months ago
The Spokesman-Review:
Environmental groups say a recent court loss won’t make them remove lead ammo from their crosshairs.
“We are absolutely going to push forward with our campaign to end lead ammunition. We think it’s the right thing to do for both wildlife and human health,” said Bill Snape, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “This is not about ending hunting, this is about having safe hunting, not only for wildlife but for hunters as well.”
In late December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court’s ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency has no jurisdiction to regulate lead used in ammunition. The case was brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, which joined 100 other groups in petitioning the EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act and asking the agency to regulate spent lead ammunition.
The groups contend lead ammo is responsible for poisoning millions of birds and other animals each year and say it also poses a threat to people who consume game killed with lead shot and bullets.
I won’t hold my breath while the environmental lobby compares the number of bird deaths from wind farms with that from hunting. But hold on. The best is yet to come.
But Snape said the groups will be back in some manner and suggested that could include more petitions to the EPA. He said they will also work to convince hunters to use nontoxic substitutes such as copper.
That’s right. Copper. One of the most expensive metals today, worthy of theft if left in unattended buildings. Do you see that one of the goals is to make ammunition prohibitively expensive?
We’ll see how durable gun rights advocates are. The anti-gunners aren’t giving up. They never will. We can’t either.
