Update from #AmmoBan – Commission breaks the rules!

Firearms United unfortunately has to inform you, that the EU-commission has violated basic democratic principles on top of which EU as an organization has been built on, and the impartiality of the European Commission – and its civil servants is no more.

The system should work in a way that the EC and its civil servants are impartial part of the process that should create better regulation. What EC should not do, is to abuse its power to push its own ideological agenda. Unfortunately, this impartiality is no more – we have recently come to possession of written evidence in form a document, where the EC – in writing – requests members of nature preservation group (NADEG – Expert Group on the Birds and Habitats Directives) to influence local civil servants in EU-member states in such a way, that the ideologically driven #EUAmmoBan – which commission has tried to pass – but failed due to opposition of member states – would be passed in REACH committee.

Note – it is worth noting that Commission asks them to push both #EUAmmoban for hunting (remotely related to birds and preservation) and #EUAmmoBan phase 2 – which is full on ban on lead ammunition also in sports shooting, which basically stops shooting activities as we know it – and would at minimum require re-barreling of existing firearms and cause huge increase on prices of ammunition.

The actual text goes:
“The Commission services would like to invite NADEG members to contact the competent national authorities in charge of REACH, in particular their national representatives in the REACH Committee, to raise their awareness on the issue and to ensure a positive vote on the draft Commission Regulation. A vote in the Committee is expected in June.

In parallel, the Commission asked ECHA to assess the potential ban of lead in terrestrial habitats other than wetlands and in fishing weights (cf. resolution 11.15 of the Convention on Migratory Species 11.15 ). ECHA concluded that there are sufficient indications of risk from those uses of lead to justify additional regulatory measures . On 16 July 2019, the Commission requested ECHA to prepare an Annex XV dossier for restriction on the placing on the market and use of lead in ammunition, i.e. gunshot used in terrains other than wetlands and bullets used both in wetlands and in terrains other than wetlands, as well as of lead in fishing tackle.

ECHA is currently working on the Annex XV dossier for restriction, to be submitted to the Scientific Committees in the autumn of 2020. All the information on this process will be made publicly available on ECHA website. NADEG members can also contribute to the on-going restriction process (potential ban of lead in terrestrial habitats other than wetlands and in fishing weights). Once the discussion starts in the ECHA Scientific Committees, there will be two public consultations.”

The actual document here:
https://firearms-united.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Doc-NADEG-20-05-03-Lead-in-ammunition-ECHA1.docx

Leave a Reply