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Proposed Bill A5728: No Lead Ammo by Tom Reynolds
NYS Assembly bill A5728 prohibits the use of lead ammunition in the taking of wildlife on state-owned land and on land contributing surface water to the NY City water supply.
SCOPE opposes this bill as it would hamper gun owners.
The actual bill reads as follows:
Section 1. Subdivision 3 of section 11-0901 of the environmental conservation law is amended by adding a new paragraph h to read as follows:
h. Wildlife shall not be taken with the use of lead ammunition on:
- wildlife management areas, state forests, forest preserves, state parks or any other state-owned land that is open for hunting; and
- the land area contributing surface water to the New York city water supply.
For the purposes of this paragraph "lead ammunition" shall mean any ammunition that contains one percent or more of lead by weight.
This act shall take effect January 1, 2023.
Presently the proposed law would be a prohibition of lead ammo usage on any NY State public land and on any land contributing water to NY City regardless of the likelihood of adverse health impacts on people or the general environment. The second part about land area contributing surface water to the NY City water supply is the “gotcha” in this bill. The next step would be to ban lead ammo on land contributing water to any municipal water supply thus eventually banning it anywhere in NYS.
The current ammo shortage will eventually end. But the shortage of lead-free ammo will not! Even before the current ammo shortage began, lead-free ammo was, reportedly, very hard to get - if it was available. If this trend of lead-free ammo shortage continues, you will not be able to hunt on state land after the effective date. This includes not being able to use rim-fire lead ammo for small game hunting. Obviously, this a backdoor hunting ban because of the scarcity of lead-free ammo.
If the lead-free ban is expanded – and you can almost bet on that - the government might permit us to use any lead ammo we already own for a year or so and after that possession of our current supplies will probably be declared illegal. (gun owners again become criminals.) Imagine if any current supplies you possess are declared to be illegal and you can't find new, non-lead ammo for your guns; they wouldn't need any further laws to just about eliminate gun use by law abiding citizens.
NRA-ILA reports that alternatives to lead ammunition are cost prohibitive for hunters in New York. But this is by design. Animal extremists want to drive up the cost of hunting to reduce participation and thereby reduce the number of hunters, which remain the financial backbone of conservation efforts throughout the state. Animal extremists want hunting out of the picture and hunters off the landscape. The simple truth is that there is no credible evidence that lead ammunition has a negative impact on wildlife species. But the goal of the extremists is to remove hunting, not promote wildlife. Consider the loss of these advantages of lead:
· Lead is a pretty heavy metal, therefore capable of carrying more force on impact. Therefore, smaller size projectiles can cause greater harm when compared to other metals of same size/dimension.
· Lead is soft, especially when it comes out hot from the barrel, making it malleable enough to transfer complete impact on the target, without passing through the target.
· The softness of lead greatly helps in inducing ‘rifling’ on itself, thus ensuring better accuracy, without damaging the otherwise harder metal barrel.
· The softness of lead also plays a great part in expanding itself at the rear end, to properly engulf the circumference of the barrel (when fired), so that full impact of the power of the explosion (or air pressure in air guns) is rendered on the projectile with minimum leakage.
· And when lead enters a target, like a human body or animal, its impact on harder parts like bones, etc., will cause it to splinter, sending delicate shrapnel in various direction - leading to mode damage and higher probability of death.
And if you are worried about wildfires, certain non-lead ammo hitting flammable materials could create sparks which can produce forest fires.
A5728, is progressing fast! It passed the Assembly's Environmental Conservation Committee on 4/27/2021, and was referred to the Assembly's Code Committee. A5728 passed the Codes Committee on 5/4/2021.
This bill may go to the Assembly floor shortly for the full Assembly to vote on once it gets assigned to the calendar!
Please contact ALL NYS Assembly members to let them know your stance on this bill. The NYS Legislative session ends in about a month so time is critical that you make contact.
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