Lead Ban Chronicles – More On Montana
The other day I posted up a short bit on Montana’s “test balloon” proposal to ban lead shot for upland and migratory birds on all state-owned wildlife management areas. The idea went over with the MT hunting community, appropriately enough, like a lead balloon.
Anthony Canales, who some of you may recognize from past lead ammo discussions, has been working with the NRA and others to present a solid, scientific challenge to the lead-ban proponents. For some reason, every time he posts to this blog he gets blocked, but Canales does still send me the occasional email to let me know what’s going on. Apparently, the NRA has been actively (pro-actively?) involved in the MT conversation as well. I thought his latest email was worth sharing:
Dear Mr. Loughlin,
Regarding your posting on the Montana FWP’s proposal for a requirement to use “nontoxic” shot while hunting upland game on the state’s Wildlife Management Areas-
1) NRA has been running a hunter and shooter alert on the issue for the past 2 weeks, encouraging hunters and shooters to write in to the “Surveymonkey” website entry form. In the past week our state MC’s started adding their “nonresident-hunter’s 2 cents worth” to that website, plus to various state FWP officials and their FWP Commission. The link we were also sending to Governor Schweitzer was included, but it apparently got “turned off” during the campaign.
You can see the contact information at my blog posting at:
http://tinyurl.com/yf6e3ga
I personally have been a nonresident deer and upland game hunter in Montana for a number of years now, and many California activists I work with own property, or hunt, in Montana.2) I have spoken personally with Ms. McKee of the Billings Gazette, and who I believe is also the author of the Missoula paper article. She said her source on the California origin of a lead shot ban was some gunshop sales person in Montana who attributed the ban to California, and that it was a total ban to boot.
I explained that it was a regional ban, and only applicable to centerfire and rimfire under the various regs noted under AB 821 and DFG regs. I explained to her about the failure of the birdshot ban proposal in California, and passed on some science information we used and introduced into the public record during the comment periods and F&G Commission hearings last summer.
3) While your comments on “hunters coming together and providing a united front” being the reason why AB 821 was not defeated, I believe that it lacks the context as to which position would predominate as towards a united approach.
Some folks were agreeable as to concessions to prohibit lead. Other folks were knowledgeable as to the true status of the proposed alternatives. These are issues that you and I have discussed forcefully in emails, and to a degree have apparently “agreed to disagree” on for now.
As long as there is evidence of scientific mis-statement at the best, and knowing scientific misconduct at the worst on this issue, I cannot but say to you that I strenuously must disagree with a lead ammunition ban by political concession.
Please be assured that the information we placed in the public record is not the entire record on potential scientific misconduct on this matter.
Just a note to folks who may not have been around for some of the exchanges between myself and Mr. Canales… our primary point of contention was not over whether or not there should be a lead ban (we both oppose it), but over the approaches and strategies being pursued.
Mr. Canales also takes a more optimistic point of view that, by continuing to apply pressure and scientific proof, the CA lead ban will be overturned. While I certainly would love to see that happen, and I support the efforts to that end; I have very little hope that it will come to fruition. I believe that the time and effort is better spent moving forward, and stopping the ban from spreading… both in CA and out.
Fortunately, as you can see in the email, those goals are not mutually exclusive.
Well executed Phillip,
I agree that there should have been more conclusive proof that lead bullets were, without a doubt (through scientific evidence) the leading cause of the California Condors decline.
This whole thing just simply smacked of special interest groups and their “ant”i agenda, and how quickly it was pushed through is evidence enough of that for me!
I still do contend that lead in “any” form needs to be eliminated entirely from use in our consumer products, because there are many alternatives available right now as we discuss, that would fill the void left from such an exclusion.
But, these special interest radicals have irked me so far beyond reason that I would just love to see them soundly trounced and throttled!
Now, that last statement really does have scientific validity to it, because then we would just swiftly and efficiently be eliminating those special interest groups right out of the gene pool!
January 28th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
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January 28th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
I think that the longer we let ammunition companies think we’ll fight for their special interests, they will keep ammo. prices at price-gouging rates, and continue to provide few alternatives. Right now, seeing how many non-lead alternatives there are, and the way they trickle out new ones (like the chip-makers in computers, who we’ve recently found out had been gaming the market), hunters have got to realize that the manufacturers will do everything they can to milk us dry.
By pushing non-lead to the front, we will then get the chance to reward those companies that actually compete in a clear market, and we will see prices come down, accordingly. The supply side of the market won’t do it on their own.
January 29th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Pardon my too simple approach to the issue. If lead is indeed toxic as everyone already have concluded and agreed, why not agree to have it eliminated where it may potentially contaminate and harm. Then the question becomes when and not just if. Thence we can sit on a table and negotiate to a reasonable phase out.
The only reason why there is no such definitive scientific conclusion that it actually poisoned or caused debilitation to anyone is because of the rigor of cause-and-effect correlation demanded by a scientific inquiry.
January 29th, 2010 at 1:04 pm