Traditional Ammunition and California’s Hunting Heritage are Under Attack

Currently, Assembly Bill 711 is in the suspense file of the state Senate Appropriations Committee.  It has already passed in the Assembly and your help is needed NOW!  To preserve California’s rich hunting and conservation heritage, recreational shooters and gun owners MUST actively contact members of the state Senate Appropriations Committee and respectfully urge them to oppose AB 711.  Please forward this alert to your family, friends, fellow sportsmen, conservationists and gun owners throughout California and ask them to do the same.  Contact information for the Committee members can be found below. 

AB 711 would make California the first state in the nation to prohibit the use of all lead ammunition for hunting.  Extensive research has shown that traditional lead ammunition does NOT pose a health hazard for hunters.  Please communicate the following facts to members of the state Senate Appropriations Committee and your state Senator as reasons to OPPOSE AB 711:

• Federal and state health department studies have concluded that lead ammunition is not a human health risk. 

• Despite 99% hunter compliance, the AB 821 lead ammunition ban has failed to reduce lead poisoning in condors. 

• AB 711 fails to address the alternative sources of lead in the environment that are poisoning condors and other wildlife.

Even if you are not a hunter, but you enjoy nature by bird-watching, hiking or camping, you are a beneficiary of hunting excise tax dollars through the Pittman-Robertson Act.  According to the California Department of Finance, AB 711 could cost California $34 MILLION in lost revenue and federal funding, not the $45,000 claimed by traditional ammunition ban advocates.  That is only the tip of the iceberg.  The Department of Finance figure does not include loss of jobs, reduction in taxes from decreasing hunting-related expenditures, or the likely increase in cost to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to hire more wardens to enforce the traditional ammunition ban.

Anti-hunting extremists will not cease until all traditional ammunition and hunting is banned within the United States.  The President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, Wayne Pacelle, have been quoted as saying: “We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States.  We will take it species by species until all hunting is stopped in California.  Then we will take it state by state.”  Californians CANNOT afford to let this happen!  You must contact the members of the state Senate Appropriations Committee TODAY!

Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee: 

Kevin de León (D-22), Chairman
Phone: (916) 651-4022
Fax: (916) 327-8817
E-mail: [email protected]

Mimi Walters (R-37), Vice Chairman
Phone: (916) 651-4037
Fax: (916) 445-9754
E-mail: [email protected]

Ted Gaines (R-1)
Phone: (916) 651-4001
Fax: (916) 324-2680
E-mail: [email protected]

Jerry Hill (D-13)
Phone: (916) 651-4013
Fax: (916) 324-0283
E-mail: [email protected]

Ricardo Lara (D-33)
Phone: (916) 651-4033
Fax: (916)-327-9113
E-mail: [email protected]

Alex Padilla (D-20)
Phone:  (916) 651-4020
Fax:  (916) 324-6645
E-mail: [email protected]

Darrell Steinberg (D-6)
Phone:  (916) 651-4006
Fax:  (916) 323-2263
E-mail: [email protected]