NEWTOWN, Conn –-(Ammoland.com)- California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 711 into law, eventually making it illegal to hunt anywhere in the state with traditional lead ammunition despite the fact that a key governmental report on the presence of lead in blood samples from California condors was never released.
That report should have been produced in June 2013 while AB 711 was before the legislature so it could be reviewed and its conclusions debated prior to passage.
“The 2008 and 2009 reports were both issued on time (in June 2009 and June 2010, respectively). Strangely, however, the 2012 report, due by June 30, 2013, is more than three months overdue. The agenda for the next California Fish & Game Commission (November 6, 2013) includes a presentation by the Department regarding the “status update on report regarding levels of lead found in California Condors during 2012[.]” Very recently, however, a representative of the Department stated that it had not received the necessary information from the Service, and that the Department’s report may be delayed until at least December 2013.”
“Certainly, some will speculate that the Service intentionally delayed the release of the data upon seeing that the data did not “fit” with the current attempt to ban lead ammunition, or that the Service simply de-prioritized the matter, regardless of the fact that doing so would force the Department to miss the statutory deadline for production of its report. And though preliminary analysis of blood-lead data obtained via requests under public record access laws does suggest that the 2012 data does not support a statewide lead-based ammunition ban, the delay may also have resulted from more prosaic factors, e.g., budget shortfalls or, as the Department has suggested, the federal government shutdown (though this explanation falls somewhat flat, as the Service’s failure to timely produce data to the Department had occurred well before the government shutdown).”
The 2012 report is now nearly four months overdue. AB 711 is, at best, a drastically overreaching attempt to move forward the anti-traditional ammunition agenda to curtail hunting in the state.
NSSF will continue to keep you posted on developments in the continuing fight to stop implementation of AB 711. Visit HuntForTruth.org for more information.
About NSSFThe National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 6,000 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers. For more information, log on to www.nssf.org.