NSSF Action Alert: Oppose Petition to Ban Traditional Ammunition

All Gun Owners, Hunters and Shooters,

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) -- the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry -- urges you to contact the Environmental Protection Agency to oppose a petition filed August 3 by the extremist Center for Biological Diversity to ban traditional ammunition. Your right to choose the ammunition you hunt and shoot with is at stake.

Express your opposition by calling or e-mailing:

Lisa P. Jackson
Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20460
(202) 564-4700
Fax: (202) 501-1450
Email: [email protected]

And

Steve Owens
Assistant Administrator, Prevention, Pesticides & Toxic Substances U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20460
(202) 564-2902
Fax: (202) 546-0801
Email: [email protected]

Background:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry, encourages all gun owners, hunters and shooters to oppose the petition filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seeking to ban the use of traditional ammunition containing lead-core components. This ban would apply to ALL ammunition including ammunition used by target shooters.

Filed by several agenda-driven groups including the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the petition erroneously claims that the use of traditional ammunition poses a danger to (1) wildlife, in particular raptors such as bald eagles, that may feed on entrails or unrecovered game left in the field and (2) that there is a human health risk from consuming game harvested using traditional ammunition. Also falsely alleged in the petition is that the use of traditional ammunition by hunters is inconsistent with the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976 -- Congress expressly exempted ammunition from being regulated as a "toxic substance."

NSSF urges you to stress the following in your opposition:

• There is no scientific evidence that the use of traditional ammunition is having an adverse impact on wildlife populations that would require restricting or banning the use of traditional ammunition beyond current limitations, such as the scientifically based restriction on waterfowl hunting.
• Recent statistics from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service showing that from 1981 to 2006 the number of breeding pairs of bald eagles in the United States increased 724 percent. And much like the bald eagle, raptor populations throughout the United States are soaring.
• A ban on traditional ammunition would have a serious negative impact on wildlife conservation. The federal excise tax that manufacturers pay on the sale of the ammunition (11 percent) is a primary source of wildlife conservation funding. The bald eagle's recovery, considered to be a great conservation success story, was made possible and funded by hunters using traditional ammunition - the very ammunition organizations like the CBD are now demonizing.