With only a couple of weeks remaining before Colorado's recall elections targeting Senate president John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron, the big guns of the anti-gun movement have checked in with their checkbooks.

According to contribution reports filed with the Secretary of State, New York Michael Bloomberg chipped in $350,000 to Taxpayers for Responsible Democracy, the committee organized to fight the recall move by voters in Morse and Giron's districts outraged at their having played key roles in pushing Colorado's new gun laws.

Bloomberg's not the only big-buck contributor. According to the filings, other contributors gave from $20,000 to $250,000 of the $708,000 in contributions raised between April 2 and August 22. In all, more than 17,000 contributions were received, but the bulk of the money came from anti-gun supporters outside Colorado.

Two other groups, A Whole Lot of People for John Morse, and Pueblo United for Angela, had raised $453,149 and $104,382, respectively since April. The two groups now report having $104,382 and $44,673 in cash on hand.

Recall organizers are outraged by the disclosures, criticizing "nanny state politicians who tried to ban Big Gulps, and attempted to regulate sodas and trans fats" for trying to force their political agendas on Coloradoans. In response, anti-gun groups say it's the first time they've had funding to "compete with the NRA and other national groups" who they say have poured money into Colorado to defeat other "common sense" gun regulations.

If that's the case, the election on September 10 will be watched closely by both sides. And the fact of the matter is that on September 10, it won't matter how much money has been poured into the respective campaigns.

At that point, only the voters will matter. Which is the way it should be.

On Friday, Mayor Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns group is set to be in Columbus, Ohio to hold a rally the Buckeye Firearms Association (BFA) says it designed to "attack Senator Rob Portman and promoting measures that will restrict your gun rights as Ohioans."

So BFA is asking gun rights supporters to turn out to support Portman and tell the MAIG to "stop meddling in Ohio politics." If you're interested, BFA is asking that you get to 37 West Broad Street in Columbus by noon -and to wear clothing that makes it obvious you're not anti-gun. They're recommending NRA or BFA shirts and say they'll have stickers to wear and respectful signs to wave.
Looks like there could be a high-noon showdown tomorrow in Columbus, Ohio.

California's Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton Bonham has gone on record as supporting a bill that, if passed, would ban all lead ammunition for hunting all species in California- with some qualifiers.

A letter from Bonham to AB 711 author Assemblyman Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) says the DFW would "Support if Amended" AB 711 with three amendments:

1) Temporarily suspend the lead ammunition ban for a given season it no nonlead ammunition is available in a specific caliber due to a ruling by the the Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives related to armor piercing ammunition.
2) Give a one-year extension on the implementation deadline to July 1, 2019 to provide sufficient time to properly implement the lead ammunition ban.
3) Rewrite language, currently defining non-lead ammo as having "less than one percent of lead" to "codify a workable definition consistent with existing regulations."

The first amendment might cause the groups working to ban lead ammunition some considerable heartburn as the ATF has not shown any inclination to revisit their classification of armor-piercing bullets as "a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed ... from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium." (18 U.S.C. § 921).

Under that definition, frangible ammunition is classified as "armor-piercing" due to its material contents. The regulation also ignores the fact that handguns have been produced for virtually an cartridge or caliber imaginable- including those used in the vast majority of hunting rifles.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation and other groups have been pushing the ATF and the Attorney General's office to reexamine the currently-written regulation concerning "armor piercing" ammunition. There has been no indication of that happening.

California DFW Deputy Director Jordan Traverso told the Western Outdoor News "This bill is more likely than not to pass. Our hope is that these amendments help preserve our rich hunting heritage in the state while protecting wildlife resources, like the California Condor, that are affected by ammunition containing lead."

As has been pointed out- repeatedly- the argument tying ammunition to the deaths of California Condors doesn't necessarily hold. Despite lead ammunition having been banned for years over the bird's range, Condors are still dying of lead poisioning.
(Editor's Note: As a background to the entire lead issue, we'd direct you to Monday's feature written by Jeff Knox of The Firearms Coalition athttp://www.theoutdoorwire.com/features/227923).

The number of groups opposing AB 711 has grown, but the California Assembly has shown its willingness to ignore the potential financial repercussions of the loss of hunting revenues or Pittman-Robertson funding should AB 711 pass.

We'll keep you posted.