LEGAL
Some of the more politicized environmental organizations have often utilized the legal system to promote agendas outside mainstream values concerning lead ammunition and hunters' rights. Environmental organizations, such as the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, annually file hundreds of lawsuits nationwide in order to implement environmental policies and regulations that the majority of the U.S. population does not support. These lawsuits and legal challenges nearly deplete many governmental agencies’ annual budgets, in defending their policies and regulations against meritless claims that do not reflect widely held convictions of the majority of Americans.
Hunting, recreational shooting and affiliated organizations such as The National Rifle Association (NRA), Safari Club International and National Shooting Sports Foundation have successfully intervened in numerous cases to defend shooting sports and bring to light the unauthenticated science utilized in these proposals and the lack of transparency within the scientific process. Additionally, the NRA has actively engaged anti-lead ammunition and anti-lead hunting activists in numerous legal challenges within the context of the regulatory process to expose scientific studies that have not been authenticated and information behind their attempts to ban lead ammunition.
Recognizing that these environmental groups attempting to ban the use of lead ammunition have based their claims upon scientific studies that have not been verified and an agenda that seeks to ban hunting across all 50 states, the NRA and affiliated groups continue to work together to protect Second Amendment rights and to preserve America’s “traditional hunting heritage.”