There are two more regulatory storm fronts moving in that may make it difficult or impossible to get the ammunition that firearm owners need to defend themselves and their families, and to engage in the shooting sports.

The uncoordinated attacks come separately from neo-enviro groups and from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. But taken together, these two separate proposals from these two separate groups create a perfect storm that could potentially result in an absolute ban on almost all ammunition.

How?

The extremist environmental groups are trying to ban lead ammunition. Federal law already bans the use of lead ammunition to take water fowl, but these groups will not be satisfied until all lead ammunition use is prohibited. They claim that the minuscule levels of lead introduced into the environment by hunters causes harm to persons and wildlife (most notably the California condor). This junk science resulted in the state legislature passing a ban on lead ammunition in central California. Not content with leaving ammunition banned within California borders, the groups have expanded their push to ban lead ammunition into other states and at the federal level.

The groups pushing for bans on lead ammunition argue that there are less toxic substances than lead available to make bullets. In making this push they suggest that ammunition should be made from alternate materials such as tungsten alloys, bismuth, steel, iron, brass, copper or bronze instead of lead.

Meanwhile, the second front against ammunition comes from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and stems from its attempts to determine whether certain types of ammunition are "armor piercing" under the law. The problem? Many, if not all of the alternate metals that the neo-enviros want the bullets to be made from can fall under the "armor piercing" ammunition definition due to the hardness of the "green" non-lead metals.

ATF is also reviewing what types of ammunition is "primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes." ATF could use that determination to ban any ammunition that isn’t suitable for sporting purposes. What is suitable for sporting purposes? Lead ammunition, the very ammunition that the neo-enviros want to ban.

Ammunition consumers are caught in the middle between the neo-enviros push to ban lead ammunition, and the ATF’s pending re-characterization of "armor piercing" ammunition and ammunition not for "sporing purposes" to mean all non-lead ammunition. If both sides get their way, there could be nothing left.

For a more comprehensive memo on these topics, click here.