Misinformation about Zinke's ban on lead bullets

In response to Gary Armstrong:

It was with a mixture of mirth and annoyance that I read Mr. Armstrong’s very insulting attack on our new Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, mirth that Mr. Armstrong was so ill-informed and annoyance that he proceeded to lecture from that platform of misinformation.

Mr. Armstrong seems to be under the impression that Secretary Zinke has rolled back the 26-year-old ban on the use of lead shotgun pellets for the hunting of waterfowl and migratory game birds. That is not true at all. What Secretary Zinke has correctly done is to rescind an order issued by Mr. Dan Ashe, director of the United States Fish & Wildlife Service, an order issued on January 19, the last day of the dying Obama administration.

That order was a sneaky, underhanded move taken without congressional approval, without public input and without scientific justification. That order banned not only shotgun pellets but rifle bullets and musket balls and applied not just to waterfowl but to all hunting on all National Parks and USF&W preserves.

As a symbolic measure with some limited effect, it was a foot in the door or a step down the slippery slope of further expanding federal regulation of sporting firearms and ammunition.

Make no mistake, expanding government control was the only purpose of this measure. There is no scientific evidence that lead rifle bullets used in hunting game are a significant hazard to the environment.

I applaud Secretary Zinke in overturning this measure.

Gary Houseman

Troy, Montana