There has been lots of reporting on the closure of the Doe Run primary lead smelter in MO this week. Plenty of hysterical ravings about an impending ammunition shortage in 2014 and general doomsday predictions that all bullet material will have to be exported for processing and reimported. That’s not true- as noted by Emily Miller and Bob Owens.
However there is a real threat to the production of bullet material in the US- and its part of the Obama Administratration’s War on the 2A. I have a couple friends who work in the lead industry who help supply ammunition manufacturers. Lately their insight into ammunition rumors has been pretty useful. With that as a backdrop here are a few ongoing attacks on ammo manufacturers that the MSM overlooks in its reporting:
- The EPA has been at war against lead for several administrations and the Obama Administration has finally imposed regulations on a major producer of domestic ammunition that will limit their ability to manufacture lead bullets (I promised not to name them but its a name everyone would recognize). With strong White House backing the EPA went full press on this company and they had to cease in-house projectile manufacturing and switched to buying up processed material at a much greater expense
- Executives at that well-known ammo manufacturer have expressed concerns that they were only the first name on a White House ‘hit list’ and that the EPA will be expanding these attacks to the rest of the ammuntion producers as quickly as it can
- The EPA has not levied any new or heavy handed regulations on the battery manufacturing industry – which is interesting because battery manufacturing employs about 24,000 people while the ammunition manufacturing industry employs nearly 45,000 people. Way to look out for the economy, Washington!
