Nationwide Lead Ammo Ban

[ADB]

So,the lead matters and the mercury does not.

Of course mercury matters. But to compare the 4 milligrams of mercury in a CFL, which is sealed away from the environment, with the roughly 3,000 tons a year of lead that's released into the environment via hunting rounds, and to claim that one invalidates the other, is ridiculous. And it smacks of an attitude of "everything's just fine, leave it alone," even when it's not necessarily fine.

That lake where you can't eat the fish is that way because decades ago when science was trying to convince people that coal-fired power plants were dangerous and dirty, most folks had the attitude that we'd been using coal for power for a hundred years, therefore it was obviously safe. And anyone saying otherwise was some kind of pinko commie tree hugger. Now you have a lake where you can only eat one fish a month. I for one would prefer not to have my future kids sitting where I am in twenty years, wishing that people had listened about the dangers of lead before we filled the ecosystem with it. Because you can't put the genie back in the bottle.

There's another good article here that goes into details about the lead levels in the blood of various people tested in North Dakota, including one older hunter who was within 0.2 milligrams of the legal definition of lead poisoning.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...ers-at-risk/&hl=en&client=opera&gl=us&strip=1

You could handle the problem by using non lead ammo for yourself,but you prefer to ban lead.

Actually, I prefer to not irrationally decry scientific research claiming it's a conspiracy to seize guns. You can cast whatever you like to plink with. And there's plenty of lead-free .22 rimfire rounds available too, for about the same price as I'd pay for the same sized box of lead based .22s. There's lots and lots of lead-free hunting rounds, and there's even alternatives for people who like to cast, like tin, which is slightly lighter but also much easier to melt. So to equate lead-free hunting bullets for hunting with an assault on hunters, or part of some scheme to take away guns, is silly. You might as well be demanding the "liberty" to drench yourself in DDT. Buy one box of lead-free bullets a year to hunt with and move on with life.

 

[Al Norris]

ADB, here's the part of sloppy reporting that leads many to believe that this is, is fact, fear mongering. The article you referenced says:

their average blood lead level was 1.27 micrograms of lead per 10 deciliters of blood

Where the article in Scientific American (that Eghad referenced) said 1.27µg per deciliter... Which is it? because the former is 10 times higher than the latter.

Note bene: For those that are math impaired, 1.27µg / 10 deciliters = .127µg / deciliter.

... — two-thirds higher than people who did not consume wild game.

That, above, is plain fear mongering. The author didn't come out and say that those who didn't eat game, had levels at .84µg per (10?) deciliters. No, the author says 2/3 higher! You'll have to pardon me, when I say that 1.27µg is 51% higher than .84µg, not 66% as the article states.

We have a .43µg difference in lead levels, with no attribution in how the lead levels of the non-game eating controls got that high. With no mention of how the controls were contaminated, I smell agenda.

 

[HiBC]

I sure am looking forward to dove season.A little cream cheese in a half a jalapeno,maybe a sliver of garlic and a slice of portobella,a filet of dove breast shot with lead antimony shot,wrapped in bacon and grilled over a charcoal fire,though propane will do,if it must.
We have always had really good drinking water here.Of course,it comes out of the faucet from the same lake with mercury fish.We don't have a coal plant nearby,its natural gas.Could be there is gold in them hills.
I believe we are an integral part of the great plan.I believe the ultimate solar cell is the green plant.It stores the suns energy beautifully.It makes corn,a wonderful mix of carbon,hydrogen oxygen, that I,an unashamed carbon based organism,can eat,or feed to protien animals.
Firewood,stored solar energy I can use for heat and light,but better yet,what a gift from the earth,OIL.And coal.These fuels have given mankind the freedom to travel with speed and safety,and a marvelous infrastructure,24-7 I can stick a card in a pump and fuel up!!
Millions and millions of people would not survive the first winter without it.

Mao said "All political power forms out of the barrel of a gun.It is true.Political power is the power to coerce.All people,parties,and politics that are about incresing political power are about increasing the power to coerce.
In the end,those who want to ban lead also want that 250,000 strong civilian security force( that was a campaign promise) to be able to kick in my door with a no-knock warrant to arrest me for possesion of a controlled substance,a metallic element we have been blessed with.
You see,as all political power grows from the barrel of a gun,and we are a government of the people,by the people and for the people,the people need lead to keep freedom secure.
If you want to buy 10 non toxic rounds,do ahead.I can shoot a lead ball from a flintlock,recover it,cast it ant shoot it again.
Folks who want to ban lead want a flock of helpless people.If they build that,He will come.The next Stalin,or Hitler..Stories get told over and over.

It is you,shooter,they want to make a criminal out of for posession of lead.

Long ago I would recite from Gary Snyder's "Turtle Island" I started driving 30 mpg vehicle in the 70's,with a Mini-Cooper.I am a minimum impact camper,and generally minimum impact.It breaks 100 deg here,I have no interest in owning or running air conditioning.I am still driving a wonderful,clean running 1983 Tercel I built from recycled junk in 1998.
I view this trendy quasi-religion Al Gore corrupt dogmatic propaganda with the disdain it desrves.The very day someone used a spotted owl ,not to care anything about the owl they trapped and planted,but as a tool to use to gain power,it all bcame a lie,worthy of no respect.The east Anglia e-mails,data corruption.Lies.
Multiple mansions and flying all over in big jets,massive consumption of everything for the epitome of a fat(literally) cat might as well be Marie Antoinette telling the masses with no bread to eat cake.
Corrupt scum corrupting young skulls full of the bland protien TOFU.

Ah,I must think happy place.My muzzle loader Pronghorn tag.Lead Round ball,54.Yes.Ommmmmmm........

 

[mack59]

Purusing Google on this topic - shows that there is a very strong movement underway to ban lead ammunition (which means all bullets that contain lead whether totally copper clad or not) - that much of the hunting forums are on board with it already - and that there is a slight division between some who want to ban just lead hunting bullets and those that want to ban all lead bullets. Given the strong alliance between environmentalists, animal rights acivivsts, many hunters, gun control advocates, and the Federal governmemts plan to ban all lead bullets on federal land - this movement is already far advanced.

Scientific evidence does seem to show some increase in blood levels of individuals who consume wild game shot with lead projectiles. There is little scientific evidence to date on any long term effects or evidence of lead poisoning in individuals who habitually eat wild game harvested with lead projectiles.

Given the support I already see for this movement and the general publics predisposition to support environmental regulation - I think the bottom line is that all lead bullets will be banned on public land and for hunting purposes and we will be lucky if all lead bullets aren't banned totally. And if you think that the hunting community and organizations will oppose this - you had best think again - as it is divided - and from what I can see many hunters are proponents of the idea.

 

[mack59]

Here is a good summary of the issue - including some points and information that I wasn't aware of:

http://www.texashuntingchat.com/gen...rst-shots-fired-battle-over-lead-bullets.html

Looks like they are shooting for a ban on all lead ammunition and not just for hunting ammunition.

Can you imagine the cost of clays or skeet with no lead or IPSC or other shooting sports? What are they going to shoot out of old style muzzleloaders? Throw out all that casting equipment?

 

[Edward429451]

Yep, each lead bullet a felony, each mould a federal offense. They'll have to change my name to osama been leadin

 

[roy reali]

Poison?

I have friend that has a lead pellet in the palm of his hand. You can actually see it. When he was a kid he put his hand over the muzzle of a pellet gun to see what it would feel like. The doctors left the lead pellet in because removng it would have done more harm then good. He has survived near fifty years with lead in his hand.

I guess lead must be a slow acting toxin!

 

[Nnobby45]

Seeing as we now have excellent non-toxic ammo available, I really wouldn't be terribly opposed to a lead ban for hunting ammo

Ahhhhh, Jeez, Doyle---Wake up! It's not about banning lead. It's a back door tactic to place yet more restrictions on your right to hunt, target shoot, and defend yourself. After the ban on lead, what's next on their agenda?

Well, it's banning guns, but they don't have the political support for that right now, especially in a growing pro 2A climate, so the attack is coming from a less conventional direction. Ban lead, put taggants in powder, micro stamping, smart guns---I suspect they'll want to have a "copper bullet excise tax" next. This is anti-gun legislation using the environment as bait.

Just my thoughts on the matter. Think I'll go have a Red Bull (only because I gave up drinking years ago).

 

[seed]

So if they actually banned lead, what is there? Bismuth? Steel? Some strange alloy I don't know about?

 

[HiBC]

I believe the brits told Ghandi he was forbidden to make salt at the sea in the old tradition.Ghandi and his people made salt anyway.They suffered for it,but they made salt.
Any man who can believe it is a good day to die can remain free his whole life.
Charleton Heston lives.

 

[spacecoast]

So if they actually banned lead, what is there? Bismuth? Steel? Some strange alloy I don't know about?

See post #23 in this thread. Copper is already widely used both for plating and for making bullets, but obviously is not as heavy as lead. There's hardly anything with an acceptably low melting point and low cost like lead, especially if you want to cast your own. Maybe zinc, but it's lighter than copper.

 

[seed]

Thanks. Sadly I actually did read that post a while ago and forgot where it was...I've been following multiple threads on multiple board on this subject, lost track and was too lazy to find it. However, I don't think it mentioned bismuth...Why not?...It seems like a viable candidate -- at least for practice ammo.

 

[Uncle Buck]

Copper, like any metal in high doses can be dangerous. I believe that copper will kill sheep.

Growing up, there was a neighbor nobody liked and some of the guys in the neighborhood put copper nails in all his trees. They slowly died.

Also, copper is expensive. What would pure copper bullets do to prices?


The new light bulbs (CFL) are getting better, but they do not give off nearly as much heat as the incandescent bulbs do. Here at the farm, we use 60 - 100 watt bulbs for heaters for the baby poultry.

There are pluses and minuses to everything. Do the cost outweigh the benefits? I guess that depends on whose pocket you are taking the money from.

If it looks like the lead ban will pass, then I will do the same thing I am doing with incandescent light bulbs and stock up. (I expect it [Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007] will really take effect in 2020, but it may be harder to find the bulbs I need starting in 2012.)

I am still very convinced that it is an environmental group that is behind this. I wrote to one news organization and asked where the "Millions of animals..." stats came from and have received no reply.

 

[mack59]

Bismuth about 17 dollars a pound and lead about 2 dollars a pound - so how much can you afford to shoot?

 

[brickeyee]

Metallic lead, even if ingested, needs to be reduced to nearly a powder to be any type of hazard.

You simply cannot absorb significant metallic lead in you GI tract.

If you swallowed a piece of shot, or a small lead fragment from a bullet, it is going to pass right on through.

Organic lead containing chemicals ARE a hazard.
The lead in lead paint is lead acetate, also known as 'sugar of lead.'
It is soluble and easily absorbed.

Birds use a gizzard to grind the food they eat, and if lead shot ends up there it will be ground fine enough to allow absorption.

We have already banned lead shot in many places for hunting birds.

Bullets are routinely left in shooting victims, with no long term effect from any lead.
The only thing in our body that can significantly dissolve lead is the synovial fluid in joints.

A bullet will be removed during surgery if the doctors come across it, but they do not normally want to increase damage just to find it.

 

[mack59]

From what I have read what brickeyee posted is accurate. I also found some information here: http://skinnymoose.com/help4hunters...in-venison-meat-hunters-feeding-the-hungry-2/

The second article documents that hunters actually have lower than average lead levels than the average of non-hunters - which refutes critics claims - and the study referenced was done by the CDC so it was demonstrably not done by a pro-gun organization.

 

[seed]

I know this is going to sound crazy, but what about lead reclaimation at shooting ranges? Believe it or not, I actually read that at present levels of use, we will run out of lead in 40+ years and even as fast as 18 years when present growth trends are taken into consideration. True or false, it does bring up another problem if lead is not banned. Anyway, if there was some way to safely reclaim some of the lead in ranges (perhaps it would help if they were designed with this in mind), it could possibly lead to a way to kill two birds with one stone: end the waste of a useful material as well as to stop the endless accumulation of a toxic substance at these ranges. It may also help to curb the enthusiasm to ban all uses of lead ammo...at least for some. The alcohol industry used a pre-emptive strategy to prevent an avalanche of legislation against their industry by taking steps to help prevent the sale of alcohol to minors. Whether or not what they did actually helped do this is another matter, but it did go far make them look responsible.

Of course lead reclaimation leads to whole bunch of problems that would be encountered...the immediate one being cost which would undoubtedly be passed to the shooters. But it could be somewhat offset with preventing an even worse scenario, such as a ban on some types of shooting lead or perhaps an increase in the cost of lead should it become somewhat rare. Just an idea. Please don't slaughter me if you think it is stupid.

 

[HiBC]

A CAS shooter who was involved with a shooting range expansion told me they had to file a lead reclaimation plan with the EPA.
I know we at least used to be able to purchase reclaimed lead shot for reloading.There are machines that harvest it.

 

[mack59]

Much of the lead used/produced each year is recycled.

Interesting stats on wildlife populations - the following have all increased in populations - most more than double - some ten times or more in the last fifty years.

18,000 wolves

1 to 10 million coyotes

30 million deer

600,000 black bears

32,500 brown bears

30,000 mountain lions

42 million ducks

255,000 moose

1,000,000 elk

70,000 bald eagles

5 million alligators

530.000 bison (500,000 privately owned and 30,000 in conservation herds)

Over 1 million caribou

40,000 to 100,000 mountain goats

19,000 big horn sheep

10 to 15 million beavers


Across North America, the number of turkey vultures roughly doubled between 1980 and 2000, while black vulture populations increased more than fourfold, according to federal officials.

Turkey vultures - 1,300,000

Black vultures - 250,000

Red Tailed Hawk 2,000,000

Peregrine Falcon - 300,000

Wild Turkey - 1,200,000


Interesting that vultures and bald eagles - which should be the most effected by lead in game animals - as they consume carrion - seem to be rapidly increasing in numbers.

 

[roy reali]

Another Case

I was talking about this subjuect with several guys at work. One of the guys has a half dozen #6 lead pellets in his back that he aquired from a careless hunter. They have been there for many years. Yet, as I was talking to him, he seemed to be alive.