| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Appeals Court Sides With Gun Rights Activists In Bullet Battle
B. Christopher Agee / Western Journalism
In an ostensible effort to mitigate any potential health risks associated with exposure to lead, a number of environmental groups and activists have been pressuring the Environmental Protection Agency to impose regulations on spent ammunition rounds made from the metal. The EPA, however, contends that doing so would necessitate the regulation of cartridges and shells – products exempted under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Naturally, many gun rights groups have supported the EPA’s position as the more than 100 environmentalist groups behind the push have not provided a method for regulating rounds only after they are fired. The issue most recently made its way to the Washington D.C. U.S. Court of Appeals, which also sided with the EPA.
Appeals Judge David Tatel stated in the court’s decision that since “bullets and shot can become spent only if they are first contained in a cartridge or shell and then fired from a weapon,” there is no method on the table by which the EPA “could regulate spent bullets and shot without also regulating cartridges and shells” – a violation of the aforementioned law.
Tatel went on to write, on behalf of the three-judge panel, that the EPA is correct in maintaining that it “lacks statutory authority to regulate the type of spent bullets and shot identified in the environmental groups’ petition.”
Read more at Western Journalism:
