EPA petition: Guns, yes, bullets, no

There’s more than one way to flay a feline.

If you can’t get the voters to do it, if you can’t get Congress to do it and if you can’t get the courts to do it, turn to the regulatory bureaucrats. That’s what the do-gooders at the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations have done in their effort to overturn the clear meaning of the Second Amendment.

They have petitioned the EPA to ban lead shot, bullets and fishing sinkers under the Toxic Substances Control Act. The EPA has opened a public comment period that will continue until Oct. 31.

Though the law specifically exempts ammunition, the petitioners skirt this by claiming:

“The EPA is specifically prohibited from regulating ammunition or firearms under TSCA, but toxic components of ammunition can be regulated if nontoxic alternatives are commercially available. The petitioners have waited until nontoxic alternatives have become available to submit this petition in an effort to clearly indicate that this petition is not an attempt to regulate ammunition or firearms.”

But an Investor’s Business Daily editorial points out that most of the alternatives are considered armor-piercing and are thus banned under other laws. “So this amounts to gun control by stealth. Where permitted, it increases the cost of gun ownership and use,” the editorialists point out.

The Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear arms, but it doesn’t say anything about bullets.