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Old October 26, 2014, 11:29 AM   #51
Bella
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I occasionally shoot jackrabbits out here in the desert. Its usually with a shotgun firing lead shot or a rimfire shooting lead bullets. I leave the carcass in the desert for the scavengers.

When I return to that area, usually within a few days, I never find any remains of the dead hare. I guess some creature or creatures had a good meal.

But I have yet to find a dead scavenger that died from lead poisoning.
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Old October 26, 2014, 11:35 AM   #52
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My wife's uncle, at age 17 was shot in the chest. Doctors decided to leave the bullet where it was.

He died, 70 years later, from a stroke.

I know lead has serious risks, but aren't we really over reacting just a bit?
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Old October 26, 2014, 12:08 PM   #53
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Let's not fool ourselves by believing that government does not buy doctors and scientists to conduct "studies" in order to reach "conclusions" which support its agendas. It has been done before, don't think it isn't being done now.
Yes, I suspect that some of that does go on. Actually, from what I've seen with government funding it tends to work the other way - some researchers increase their chances of receiving funding by writing grant proposals for studies that are intended to support the agenda of the granting agency. I think that some of the work on climate change (which clearly allows for a lot more "wiggle room" than, say, a laboratory study of absorption of lead), for example, falls into that category. Where you find the most egregious violations of good science, however, are in studies funded by private industry where I've seen the most blatant tweaking of study design and conclusions (but not, at least in my experience, outright fraud) to support the industry position. And even there, it's the exception rather than the rule.

But, even with that as a given, let's similarly not fool ourselves by assuming that because the results of some studies may be incorrect, or even outright faked (a la the notorious now-discredited study on autism and vaccines) that the results of all studies are incorrect. Science has a way of being self-correcting in that research is published for all to see and, potentially, duplicate and, most certainly, critique. While the government may be the largest source of funding for basic research, it's not the only source, and even if the government tried to push an agenda by buying some number of doctors and scientists (and see my earlier remarks regarding that relative to the condor issue), work funded by other sources would eventually disprove it.

In addition, even if the ("the" meaning "our") government were "buying" results with the long-term goal of using them to ban guns and/or their use, much of the work on lead has been done by researchers in other countries that would appear to not have much of an agenda regarding lead toxicity and guns. Why, for example, would the British government spend money to fund research leading towards a gun ban? - they've already got a gun ban over there. Ditto for most other countries where this work has been, and is being, done. The weight-of-evidence of the research on lead toxicity clearly indicates that lead is a health risk, but a health risk that can be managed.
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Old October 26, 2014, 12:14 PM   #54
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But I have yet to find a dead scavenger that died from lead poisoning.
First, how would you know that a dead scavenger died from lead poisoning? Or maybe you're saying that you just don't find any dead scavengers? I rarely see a dead scavenger either, or (with the exception of road kills) dead anything else. But scavengers are clearly dying from a variety of causes, so where do they go? Maybe the same place the dead hare went, as do the thousands of wild animals around us that die every day only to quickly disappear. I don't find that to be compelling evidence that lead is not toxic.
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Old October 26, 2014, 12:28 PM   #55
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Lead poisoning probably won't kill a person, but it will make him sick. My gunsmithing instructor told us that he had massive lead poisoning once. He was very sick. The treatment was very unpleasant. The cause? The big one was test firing in a closed room in their shop. Smoking while sweeping the room at the end of the day. A lot of people firmly believe lead is no harm. They eat and drink while they shoot. That's their choice. Others, myself included, choose otherwise.

-TL
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Old October 29, 2014, 05:12 PM   #56
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Lead poisoning probably won't kill a person, but it will make him sick.
Lead poisoning has killed many people, thousands?, hundreds of thousands?, I don't know just how many have died of lead poisoning through the human history.

I recall reading on one site of a Police Trainer who worked at an indoor range and he died from the accumulation of lead particles he breathed.

Lead is no joke.
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Old October 30, 2014, 12:31 AM   #57
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No, lead is not a joke, but some of the things being done in the name of protecting us are.

And not the funny kind.

Anyone heard if ATV dealers are now under the additional restrictions proposed some time ago, because of the possibility of children eating the lead paint on 4 wheeler chassis? I never heard if that passed, or not....
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Old October 30, 2014, 03:17 AM   #58
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Children and pregnant women are particularilly susceptable !!! A poorly ventlated into range is the worst.
If you are working on an old houce , scrapping and sanding , get a test kit for lead !!
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Old October 30, 2014, 07:26 AM   #59
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I love how simple things can become so complicated.

The OP questioned the legitimacy of the hyped health and environmental concerns over LEAD AMMUNITION. Not paint, not smokestacks, not gasoline.

The idea that a handful of lead pellets from ammunition spread over acres of land is going to pose a heath hazard or environmental hazard is ridiculous, and entirely political. The few lead pellets we've probably all swallowed eating rabbits and sqirrels will likely do less damage than the broken teeth you get from biting into steel shot.

Yes, concentrations of lead in the body can cause health issues. Small amounts are normal. Lead is not a man made substance. It is naturally ocurring.

As for game getting shot, and dying from lead poisoning, considering the fact that they were shot would lead me to believe the intent was kill to begin with. Far more waterfowl got shot and flew away unrecovered from inferior steel shot than ever died from lead poisoning.

Yes, animals can eat shot. That a dozen shots over 1000 acre swamp is going to result in ducks diving, finding, and eating my shot are pretty unbelievable.

Yes scavengers could eat shot animals and ingest a bullet or pellets. There are what, like a dozen California condors in the entire state? How many acres are there in California? What are the odds that one of those dozen birds will find the unrecovered deer you shot, and eat the bullet?

Politics is taking something that COULD happen, even if 10 million to 1 odds, and making people believe that unless you pass a bunch of nonsensical laws, likely WILL happen.
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Old October 30, 2014, 07:39 AM   #60
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Anyone heard if ATV dealers are now under the additional restrictions proposed some time ago, because of the possibility of children eating the lead paint on 4 wheeler chassis? I never heard if that passed, or not....

Actually these were not legislative restrictions but regulatory restrictions by Consumer Products Safety Commision, an unelected, nonlegislative regulatory agency that answers to no one, like the EPA. The ban was passed based on total lead content in children's products, and made no concessions for contained and inaccessable lead. Had nothing to do with paint. Children's ATVs had electic start, because children typically didn't have the muscle for mechanical starting. Even though the ATV batteries were sealed, and located under the seat which was bolted on, they were banned to keep children from unbolting the seat and eating the lead/acid batteries. Today, children's ATV have a kick start or a pull rope start, and cannot have a battery operated electric starter. I'm just one of the lucky parents, whose child never ate the battery, but I'm sure this CPSC regulation prevented thousands of other kids from doing do.
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Old October 30, 2014, 10:36 AM   #61
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I died 30 years ago because I cast my on bullets---N0, wait, I must still be here.
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Old October 30, 2014, 01:19 PM   #62
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Thanks Tim, that's what I was talking about.

its a joke, and not the funny kind!
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Old October 30, 2014, 02:08 PM   #63
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I enjoy the trust some of you have in science. I remember in the seventies the scare over eating eggs. One egg and you doomed yourself to an heart attack and an early grave. Now some scientists say eggs may be one of the healthiest foods you could eat.

Let's not.forget about how bad fat is for us. They removed or reduced fat in food and replaced it with sugar and other carbohydrates so you wouldn't lose flavor. The scientists now wonder why we have an obesity and diabetes epidemic.

Global warming scientists have been warning us for nearly twenty years of the disasters that await us if we don't change the types of lightbulbs we use and all start driving electric cars. From what iI read the Antarctic ice sheet is growing.

I guess science can be wrong.
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Old October 30, 2014, 02:41 PM   #64
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The Cover of TIME Dec 3, 1973..
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Old October 30, 2014, 11:28 PM   #65
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I guess science can be wrong.
Sure it can. Scientists are humans and humans sometimes make mistakes.

It's important to keep that in mind.

It's also important to keep in mind that just because science CAN be wrong doesn't mean it's ALWAYS wrong.
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Old October 31, 2014, 01:24 PM   #66
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"Science" at one time, said you would fall off the edge of the earth if you sailed too far out.

before the global warming scare, we were all going to freeze to death in the coming Ice Age.

Eating meat bad. Eating meat good. Almost seems to change weekly.

I have no problem with science being mistaken. Other science shows the mistakes.

What I see as bad is people trying to force us to do or not do this, or that, using wrong science as the justification. The cynical among us will say, "follow the money", and, I can't entirely say they are wrong.

Frankly the global warming people both amuse and frighten me. Even when their models are discredited by both independent data and some of the very people who made up their models, they refuse to recant their mantra.

When a single volcanic eruption of a couple weeks duration puts more "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere than mankind had throughout recorded history, I find it hard to believe that WE are the cause of global warming.

What frightens me is that the mantra is being taught in schools, and children swallow it, hook, line, and sinker. These children then will grow up, "knowing" what is right, which is what they learned in school. And they will vote....
and hold public office...

worrisome....
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Old October 31, 2014, 02:51 PM   #67
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Global warming (I guess we're supposed to call it "climate change" now) has unfortunately become as much a political issue as a technical one, and that makes it very difficult to sort truth from fiction. In spite of what its advocates would have us all believe, the science is far from settled, which makes it all the more troubling when it's taught as fact in public school classrooms.

And, in spite of the laughably hyperbolic and fallacious post earlier, nutrition has become one of the more visible bastions of charlatans and others who exist by parting fools and their money. The nutrition gurus similarly, and disingenuously, present complex and poorly understood issues as settled science.

But (to circle back to what the topic of the thread is) to assume from those two examples, and/or perhaps others, or anecdotal information about Uncle Fred, who sprinkles No. 9 shot on his Wheaties in the morning and runs marathons, that there is some question about the effects of lead on the human body is to be no better than the pseudoscientists who peddle nonsense for a living. Is there a nonzero probability that everyone - and I mean, everyone - with technical credentials in the field is wrong, and in fact lead is just fine for you? Yes there is, but the probability of that being the case is very, very, low. Is there a nonzero probability that you can drive your car at 100 mph into a brick wall and, instead of destroying the car and yourself, pass harmlessly through it? Modern physics makes it absolutely clear that such a possibility exists, but the chances of it happening are very, very, small. In both cases, it makes more sense to base one's decisions and actions on what is highly probable rather than on what is technically possible, but extremely unlikely.
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