Free Republic

Firearms Industry Rejects National Park Service Classification of Traditional Ammunition as a Health Threat; Offers to Work with NPS on Hunter Education Efforts In response to an announcement today regarding a National Parks Service program encouraging hunters to voluntarily switch to alternative ammunition, the National Shooting Sports Foundation rejected NPS's categorization of traditional ammunition as a health threat. NSSF is offering to work with the National Park Service to develop measures to educate hunters about steps they can take to prevent scavengers from ingesting lead fragments of spent traditional ammunition. The park service is proposing to ban, at a minimum,...

Peter Shawn Taylor, a writer for Canada's National Post newspaper, referred to Ottawa's plan to ban lead fishing sinkers to save Canada's loons as "sinking science." After all, the annual death toll of loons that swallowed lead sinkers and perhaps died from ingesting such ungainly objects is six, at least according to several independent surveys. As the cold season arrives in the Canadian provinces, this could be the last year in which lead sinkers will be permitted. Taylor recently wrote that the federal government is proposing to ban lead tackle and force fishermen to find more expensive alternatives. Even non-anglers,...