>Many waterfowl hunting areas prohibit lead shot now, you must use steel shot.
Yes, but the problem with pistol and rifle ammunition (vs. shot for shotguns) is that steel has already been banned as an ammo choice. Logically it would be the best choice for ammo since it is really dirt cheap (less than half the price of lead even, though the price does vary). Mild steel is also fairly soft (not as soft as lead or copper, but soft enough).
A few years back the BATF decided that any ammo made of steel was armor piercing and thus had to be banned. It didn’t matter if this ammo was merely made of a mild steel core which was no more armor piercing than a lead bullet. It didn’t matter if it happened to be rifle caliber rounds which would go right through most bullet proof vests purely on velocity, no matter if the bullet was made of silly putty.
It all got banned. It used to be that one of the cheapest supplies of ammo around was steel core military surplus ammo. You could but this stuff for pennies a round from overseas suppliers (Isreal, Korea, Russia etc). When the BATF made it’s revision to the rules ammo prices jumped a ton. Used to be you could buy a case of 1000 rounds of 7.62 NATO for $100. When this ban came through the price tripled. A ban on lead in bullets would have at least that magnitude of effect. I would expect it to be even more.
That's a design feature, not a flaw.
You know, I cannot think of a single thing short of requiring turning over one's first born that would lead (pronounced "leed," not "led") to opposition more than something like this. One has to wonder why - is it part of Obama's plan to get reelected in 2012 by having a Republican-controlled Congress to blame for problems he knows are coming? Or is he hoping that someone will take some pot-shots at some pols, creating a reason to declare a state of emergency? Only the Shadow (and George Soros) knows.