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Old November 14, 2009, 08:02 PM   #1
chris in va
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Lead bans

Forgive me if this has been covered, feel free to point out some previous threads.

Bottom line, I sense a nationwide lead ban/restriction coming on. California apparently has banned lead wheelweights and hunting ammunition (IIRC).

Thoughts? What else will be used for projectiles?
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Old November 14, 2009, 11:54 PM   #2
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Copper, alloys, and other non-toxic metals.
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Old November 15, 2009, 12:10 AM   #3
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Rather than look for alternatives we need to fight it.
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Old November 15, 2009, 01:03 AM   #4
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Kalifornia has banned lead hunting ammo in the Kalifornia Kondor range, cuz the buzzards will eat the gut shot game that gets away and subsequently suffer lead poisoning. I guess they figure that lead wheel weights might fall off of your Jeep while you're hunting and the Kondors will eat them.
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Old November 15, 2009, 02:39 AM   #5
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I was at a pheasant hunt and sporting clays event yesterday. I brought almost thirty pounds of lead with me(each box of ounce and a quarter being close to 2 pounds of lead). All told I left about 20 pounds(ten boxes) out in the fields/on the courses. 32 guys there that day. Some left more, some less, but even figuring we average half the rounds I personally did, that is still 320 pounds of lead deposited over a wide area and in the watershed. I never thought about the amount of lead I was personally spreading around until I went to pick up my pack yesterday and realized how heavy it was.

Really not sure if I am going to fight a ban on lead.
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Old November 15, 2009, 03:26 AM   #6
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Rather than look for alternatives we need to fight it.
Agreed. The fed got their foot in the door on the issue with the lead poisoned waterfowl hoax.

We have to hold the line.
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Old November 15, 2009, 05:33 AM   #7
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Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't lead come from the ground naturally?
The only thing we humans are doing is changing the location.

I think most of these groups that want people to stop doing what they are doing is about control.(pick your topic)

It isn't for the "children" or the "environment", it is for their own egos and control.
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Old November 15, 2009, 01:48 PM   #8
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While lead poisoning is a problem, some of the nutcases that propagate these measures would try to ban breathable oxygen and dihydrogen monoxide if given a chance.
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Old November 15, 2009, 02:09 PM   #9
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Rather than look for alternatives we need to fight it.
On the federal level, such a ban would not come from legislation, but through sneakiness in OSHA regulations.

They tried a couple of years ago, when they attempted to redefine gunpowder as a "blasting agent" under 1910.109. Fortunately, folks caught it, and it became a huge public-relations problem for OSHA.

Vigilance and communication is key.
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Old November 15, 2009, 04:52 PM   #10
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I agree with fighting it
But the fight is a very broad scale one.
In Colorado,some years back,we had a situation where forest firefighters died because the helicopter supporting them was denied permission to take water from the Yampa river due to some little fish.

My brother once had a multi-million dollar project to pave an airport parking lot.There was one tree in this field.A pair of owls found it.The project was delayed at great cost to the taxpayer.

Agreed,lead is naturally occuring.As a kid,I had paper routes in Aurora,Ill.There is a Galena Street there.galena is lead ore.I would find ice cube sized cubic lead crystals in the sides of dirt banks.

I support taking reasonable care,but this card is played so often when it is not truly about the spotted owl in the tree,it is about using the spotted owl for another political agenda.

Just as "But,it's for the children..." The line "But,it is for a species,the earth,etc ,has profound legitimacy in some cases,when the card is overplayed,it loses credibility.

The incandesant lightbulb is to go away,as those carbon dioxide spewing,lentil methane passing bicycle peddling folks,demand we all go to flourescent lights,while the mercury content of our fish keeps going up.

Lead can be used as a means to an end,and making shooting very difficult can be the hidden agenda.There is lead in the wonderfully stable and accurate primers we use,also.

It is forgotten,or denied,that hunters,fishererfolks,and other outdoor folks were taking action for the environment ,earth and species a long,long time before it was trendy.

The sinister part of much "green" politic,it is put in place by "czar" figures,in a regulatory way,which bypasses a great deal of legislative process

It all reminds me of Tolkiens middle earth,and the dark forces of mordor are destroying everything that has to do with Freedom.

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Old November 15, 2009, 08:24 PM   #11
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lead was used for htousands of years in public drinking supply pipes, for cups, for containers to hold the salt and pepper at dinner tables.

incandescent lightbulbs work on several good principles. i can read all day with one and nothing happens to my vision. a half hour of using the new energy efficient bulbs and my head is realing for hours.
european studies have discovered that the compact bulbs and especially the "full color spectrum" ones are causing psychological disorders in people who are exposed to them for extended periods on a heavy basis.
"childhood abuse made me kill 10 people with a pair of scissors" will be replaced with "compact flourescent bulbs at home, work, subway, made me go nuts and kill 10 people..."
also the new bulbs make every possible defect stand out upon a person. the lighting at makeup counters is even worse for some reason. cant help but seeing you have ugly looking skin in the mirror next to the $100 dollar cream that promises to give you super sexy skin..

also is the same principle as bio fuel. sure it looks good in principle, you can grow corn and grass every year but you cant regrow crude oil. but the production of bio fuel subtracts massive amounts of grain from the supply we need to feed ourselves with. and that deficit requires growing even more grain, that needs more oil based fertilizer, more diesel to operate the trasport truck for the fertilizer, the tractors to spread it, water the corn, and to harvest the corn. do not forget more corn needs more propane to dry it out after harvest.
and in the end the biofuel industry admitted in 2003 that for every gallon of ethanol produced, a minimum of 2 gallons of gasoline were required to produce it.
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Old November 15, 2009, 09:13 PM   #12
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lead was used for htousands of years in public drinking supply pipes, for cups, for containers to hold the salt and pepper at dinner tables.
Although true, there is widespread belief that this did cause problems. There were lots of things done for thousands of years I want no part in.

The biggest thing going against this is simply how little lead travels. Unlike some other toxic chemicals, a huge pile of lead is little danger to someone a mile away.
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Old November 16, 2009, 05:33 PM   #13
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Guys, seriously--before you talk about fighting a ban on lead in bullets, you REALLY need to look at the myriad number of nasty things lead does. You can say it's natural and comes out of the ground, but so does arsnic and uranium. We still don't want to spread those around our environment, do we?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#Health_effects

It's an incredibly dangerous material, and I for one use as little as possible--exclusively steel shot for my 12 gauge and as little lead as possible in my .308s. Lead build up from shooting is a major problem. Think it doesn't affect you? Try saying the same thing when your favorite hunting ground loses it's game because the groundwater has become dangerous, or when your outdoor shooting range has to shutdown because it's become a public health hazard.
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Old November 17, 2009, 12:09 AM   #14
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Metallic lead is not nearly the threat that you claim. It should be treated with respect, but there are simple precautions for dealing with it safely.

Metallic lead is surprisingly inert and therefore unlikely to spread around--it remains very localized. Even if ingested isn't likely to cause problems unless it is ingested frequently or, for some reason, stays in the digestive system for a long time.

Lead compounds are what result in most lead poisoning cases but that is another story entirely.

Metallic lead is absolutely NOT an "incredibly dangerous material", it's very safe with only very simple precautions.
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favorite hunting ground loses it's game because the groundwater has become dangerous
You're saying this because you have a reference indicating that metallic lead from bullets is likely to contaminate groundwater? Because I've not seen anything that remotely supports that idea.
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or when your outdoor shooting range has to shutdown because it's become a public health hazard
Ridiculous. Anyone who is eating out of the berm already has bigger problems than the metallic lead they consume in the process. You want to know what an outdoor range in my area did when they wanted the berms "cleaned"? They contacted a salvage company in the area who came and did the work for FREE in exchange for the lead they recovered. Sounds like a huge problem to me...

The impetus for this lead ban is primarily driven by people who are uninformed on the topic, people who want to limit and hamper hunting in every way they can or people who wish to restrict firearms and make firearm ownership more difficult and or expensive. It is not driven by sound science or hard evidence that supports the ban.
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Old November 17, 2009, 12:26 AM   #15
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It's the old "Stairstep Approach". Now that it's banned in some areas, they can push to ban it it all areas. Later, an outright ban on possession of lead ammo will criminalize anyone who has a reasonable personal "stockpile" & doesn't want to have to replace it with stuff that costs 10 times as much.
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Old November 17, 2009, 01:17 AM   #16
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JohnKSa, Since when did sound science or hard evidence ever start to figure into any argument? That's like asking someone a question and they respond "... well, because everybody knows!"

I like the environmental change (Formerly 'Global Warming') answer: Because Al Gore said... :barf:

You are absolutely correct about the lead. I am more worried about all these compact fluorescent light bulbs that do not get recycled correctly, or accidentally get broken, and release mercury into the environment.

Mercury was such (is) a monster it was banned from everything from thermometers to thermostats. The environmental guru's and health people went nutz about it. But now it is environmentally friendly to use it in a light bulb your average consumer will just throw away.
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Old November 17, 2009, 02:25 AM   #17
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The impetus for this lead ban is primarily driven by people who are uninformed on the topic, people who want to limit and hamper hunting in every way they can or people who wish to restrict firearms and make firearm ownership more difficult and or expensive. It is not driven by sound science or hard evidence that supports the ban.
An odd sort of way to "hamper hunting" when there are just as effective and non-toxic metals to replace lead in bullets. And you have to remember the tendency of lead to fragment and disintegrate when hitting a hard surface, such as a rock.

What this smacks of to me is a bit of paranoia combined with a resistance to change. Using materials safer than lead isn't a big conspiracy to outlaw hunting. On the contrary, hunters should be the most interested in making sure that there's a wilderness left to hunt in some day for their descendents. The new stuff is just as effective and safer, so why not?
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Old November 17, 2009, 04:13 AM   #18
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What this smacks of to me is a bit of paranoia combined with a resistance to change. Using materials safer than lead isn't a big conspiracy to outlaw hunting. On the contrary, hunters should be the most interested in making sure that there's a wilderness left to hunt in some day for their descendents. The new stuff is just as effective and safer, so why not?
Because it adds an unnecessary added cost and forces more people to give up what may have been affordable.
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Old November 17, 2009, 05:25 AM   #19
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Arguements not based in scientific research are readily accepted as the truth. See Algore and the global warming scam.
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Old November 17, 2009, 01:27 PM   #20
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Anyone who is eating out of the berm already has bigger problems than the metallic lead they consume in the process
Oh, now that's just cruel. You guys told me there was cake back there.

John's correct about metallic lead. Without taking this too far off-topic, there was once a widely accepted theory that lead poisoning led to the fall of the Roman empire. Why? Because the Romans used lead pipes, and therefore must have all had lead poisoning.

It turns out that the Romans (and the Greeks before them) knew about lead poisoning, and that cases were only really reported among folks like blacksmiths, who were actually smelting the stuff, and certain parts of the aristocracy, who boiled wine in lead cauldrons.

The presence of lead in the pipes was mitigated to a great extent by calcium carbonate in the water. The average person was drinking and bathing in water from lead pipes on a regular basis. By modern standards, the empire should have been dead within two generations.

(Impotence is one of the side-effects of long-term lead exposure.)

My point? Having inert chunks of the stuff lying about isn't likely to hurt much of anything. It's certainly a good idea to clean the stuff up if it's accumulating, but there's a genuine commercial incentive for that, as lead is worth money to many companies.
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Old November 17, 2009, 05:36 PM   #21
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Guys, lead is dangerous pure and simple...but only in certain concentrations distributed over a period of time. For adult humans, lead poses no significant health threat unless the PPM levels are well beyond EPA standards, exposure is over a long period of time, and is ingested in a oxidized state. As for having solid lead deposits in our digestive system where stomach acid (HCl) is acting to oxidize the metal deposits...well I think it is common sense to keep those levels to a minimum.


Quote:
It turns out that the Romans (and the Greeks before them) knew about lead poisoning, and that cases were only really reported among folks like blacksmiths, who were actually smelting the stuff, and certain parts of the aristocracy, who boiled wine in lead cauldrons.
Where is the proof, please cite a source for this statement?



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Old November 17, 2009, 07:02 PM   #22
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Where is the proof, please cite a source for this statement?
Needleman and Durant both rebutted the theory, but I'll have to do some digging for chapter and verse. A quick search pulls this up.
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Old November 17, 2009, 09:17 PM   #23
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Thanks for the link.



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Old November 17, 2009, 10:54 PM   #24
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The simplest rebuttal about lead getting in the environment

Just look at lead bullets found in the ground after having been there for hundreds of years. Lead bullets and musket balls from hundreds of years ago turn up completely intact. Not melted looking, not partially dissolved (as they would have to be if they were leaching into the groundwater).

They weigh the same as they did when they hit the ground. They are the same size. They do not migrate, dissolve, or otherwise do ANYTHING that gets them into the water supply. Metallic lead is simply inert in this regard. The only thing metallic lead does is oxidize (develop the white coating) if left exposed to the air long enough.


Lead VAPOR in the air is hazardous. Lead compounds can be hazardous, but lead in bullets is only hazardous if the bullet hits you.
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Old November 18, 2009, 12:20 AM   #25
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An odd sort of way to "hamper hunting" when there are just as effective and non-toxic metals to replace lead in bullets.
They are more expensive and many don't perform well in some guns. If demand for them goes up they will become even more expensive.
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Using materials safer than lead isn't a big conspiracy to outlaw hunting.
I didn't say it was. I gave three types of people who are trying to ban lead and only one of them had anything to do with hunting.

I definitely believe that SOME people are using the lead ban as a way to make hunting more expensive and more restrictive. That belief is well-supported by looking at the considerable overlap between those who are trying to restrict hunting and those who pushing the lead ban. It's clearly not a coincidence that anti-hunting groups are spending money to push the idea that lead bullets are a problem.
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On the contrary, hunters should be the most interested in making sure that there's a wilderness left to hunt in some day for their descendents.
There is absolutely no evidence to support the implication that the continued use of lead bullets will destroy the wilderness. On the contrary, historically it has been organized, legal hunting (involving lead bullets) that has been the biggest reason that wilderness has been preserved.
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The new stuff is just as effective and safer, so why not?
"Safer" means nothing unless it is quantified. Once the increase in safety is quantified it can be compared with the quantified costs of the change and a determination can be made as to whether the safety benefit is sufficient to warrant the costs. THAT would be the responsible way to do this.

What we're faced with at this point is people who are pushing increased safety without providing any evidence to prove that this safety benefit is anything other than theoretical AND who are completely unconcerned with any of the possible costs that would be incurred by the change. That is irresponsible.
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