Guns and Lead

[DaleA]

Well, here we go again!
Legitimate health concern or ‘Yet Another Way to Demonize Guns’?

Read about it here:

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-n...f%20Pediatrics.

That lead ingestion CAN be a problem is pretty much a given.

But does having a gun and ammunition in the house contribute to lead poisoning? I’m asking this of all the gun folk that give their kids a round of ammo as a chew toy, (Hey kid, bite down on this) or have a gun range in their basement.

Minnesota is having a kerfuffle in that some legislators are concerned about the high school trap league in Minnesota exposing kids to lead. You can read the details of that here:

https://www.themeateater.com/hunt/fi...y-competitions

https://news.yahoo.com/lead-ammo-ban...OcyQSVENRRlhM2

[gwpercle]

Whatever angle the left can "invent" to demonize the legitamate use of firearms ...
they will exaggerate and use it .
Take all the studies they come out with ... and look at them very closely .
Studies aren't studies when they don't present real facts and skewed findings .
Gary

[44 AMP]

The problem is that many people, including legislators, either didn't take, or slept through high school chemistry.

To them, all lead is a bad thing and in their eyes IDLH (immediately dangerous to life and health), and that is simply not true.

SOLUABLE lead in chemical compounds such as used in "lead paint" and leaded gasoline and other things is a health risk.

Metallic lead, found as a solid in bullets and some other things, is only a health risk if you get punctured (shot), or crushed, and in those cases it is the wound that is dangerous or deadly, not the material causing it.

I knew a guy who had a lead bullet in his chest. He got shot when he was 17, and the doctors decided it would be too much of a risk to remove it.

He did die, 60 years later, from a stroke, not from the bullet or lead poisoning.

Lead bullets do not dissolve in the environment and "poison the water supply".

If they did, then one would not find lead bullets and musket balls "undissolved" in the ground and essentially full size and intact, other than external corrosion.

Banning guns and shooting because of lead bullets (and shot) is simply gun control playing on the ignorance of the un and under informed public.

Nothing else.

[tangolima]

Keeping gun and ammo in the house. No problem.

Shooting gun in the range. Possible, especially so in indoor range. It is the lead compound that exists in primer dust that will do people in.

The left and the right, both can be ignorant, or choose to be so to fit their agendas. I have met gun guys who flat out denied lead poisoning. Lead is natural substance, so it can't be harmful, they believe. It is not rare to see people, kids sometimes, eating, drinking, smoking on the firing line.

Certain water composition can dissolve lead. The strong acid in stomach certainly will.

People deserve the government they have, especially so in a democracy. Remember it was the 2nd amendment to our constitution that gave us the rights. The Constitution can still amended in the wrong direction. Don't let it happen.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[jmr40]

Being exposed to guns being fired can raise levels in lead in our bodies. Particularly at indoor ranges. The article points out how dust particles from the primer or projectile could contaminate a home.

Not many people will be firing guns inside their homes so I don't see where just having guns in the home is an issue. It could be an issue if young kids are in the area where guns are being fired. A 20 lb kid is going to be more effected by the lead than a 200 lb adult.

I do use extra precautions to clean my hands carefully after firing my guns and prefer to change clothes before handling my grandkids. But it's not something I lose sleep over

[Bob Willman]

It is interesting to look at the folks involved in the US News report by clicking on the blue links in the article. Also some indications about who is getting funded by whom.

NRA Benefctor

[44 AMP]

Remember it was the 2nd amendment to our constitution that gave us the rights.

No, sorry, it does NOT!!!

NONE of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights gives us our rights. The government does not GIVE us any rights. The Founders believed our rights, ALL our rights are "natural rights" often referred to as "God given rights", meaning those rights exist because we exist, and are not granted to us by any government, king, or other earthly authority.

Read them closely, every one of the first ten amendments (and the ones after) are all limits and restrictions on the GOVERNMENT, covering what the government is allowed to do in regard to those enumerated rights.

It may seem like a small matter of language, and in casual conversation, it generally is, but when discussing legal principles it is hugely important to have the correct understanding of terms.

We refer to various rights as First Amendment, Second Amendment, and so on because they are enumerated (listed) there and it is convenient. Not because that is where those rights come from.

The article points out how dust particles from the primer or projectile could contaminate a home.

So?? Dust particles from dust can "contaminate" a home.

Contamination is the detectable presence of something where you do not want it to be. It is a broad general term, nothing more.

Use of that word, to imply risk or hazard, without any other data is pushing an agenda. One might even consider it propaganda in certain cases.

A lead mine is not contaminated with lead. Its where the lead is supposed to be.

"Every thing is poison, what varies is the dosage" is paraphrasing a quote from the16th century alchemist Paracelsus. It was true then, its true now.

The presence of detectable lead, and lead levels that are dangerous are quite different matters.

[tangolima]

You are right. The 2nd amendment forbids the government to infringe upon that right. My bad. It guarantees our rights. The point is the constitution can still be amended in the wrong direction.

Primer dust can certainly contaminate a home if we are not cautious. Reloader separates dry tumbled brass from media on kitchen table. He bakes power coated cast bullets in kitchen over. He cleans dirty gun parts in dishwasher.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[44 AMP]

Yes, the Constitution can be amended. There is a process for that written in. However, only that process can amend the Constitution. It cannot be changed by any law passed by Congress, or any executive action of the President.

[Tom Servo]

I have serious questions about the "research" and how US News is presenting it.

Childhood exposure to lead has long been a public health concern

Sure, we've known this since the 1970s.

There’s about a 40% increase in cases of elevated blood lead levels among children for every 14% increase in the number of households that own a gun

I'd like to know how on earth they measured that. Did they ask people if they had guns in the house, then offer free blood tests for the kids? Did they have a control group who didn't own guns, and were those kids tested?

When someone fires a gun, lead dust settles on clothes and personal items

This is also a known thing. Are people using their living rooms as firing ranges? Because there's a big difference between residual lead particles from ignition and, well, ammunition just sitting inert on the shelf somewhere.

Thus, we need to identify other modifiable sources of lead exposure in children’s environments to protect their developing bodies and brains.

And here it is. Make people register ammunition. For the children, you know.

The researchers estimated gun ownership between 2012 and 2018 using a proxy measure that combined data on firearm suicides, hunting licenses, subscriptions to Guns and Ammo magazine and background checks for purchases of firearms.

If anyone has a way behind the paywall, I'd really like to see the methodology there. How many people even still subscribe to *Guns and Ammo?*

[rc]

I didn't know kids licking the ends of crusty old shotgun shells and 22 bullets was a problem we needed to study as a nation? I understand the paint chip issue but this is totally stupid and designed as a wedge issue to exercise control over ammunition.

[5whiskey]

I reload and I cast lead projectiles. I am concerned about lead exposure from aspects of those activities, for both me and my kids. I have always run the tumbler outside. Same with separating cleaned cases from media. I try not to handle spent primers more than necessary. Obviously I cast outside, and I try to pick breezy cool days (this also keeps me from dripping sweat while casting, another obvious and more accute hazard to those familiar with molten lead). I should use gloves when handling tumbling media, but I don't. That is on me, not on my kids.

Reloading and casting brings about serious risks that can't be wished away. Risks that are mitigated rather easily I might add. Indoor ranges do increase exposure, and I think frequent use of an indoor range without any PPE for years could elevate blood lead levels significantly. Lead is not easily eliminated from the body like most other substances. The risk of lead exposure is something to take seriously. But to the casual gun owner, and their kids, that risk is minimal. Even to the non-reloading gun enthusiast, that risk is tolerable (and still probably minimal to the kids). You would have to be a deep enthusiast to be at a dangerous exposure level, and even then a modicum of common sense keeps that far away from the kids and still a tolerable risk for the adult participating in those activities.

[44 AMP]

Anyone know how much lead exposure you get from firing a shot? Or how much from reloading? (cleaning cases, depriming, handling bullets, etc)

Casting is intentionally working with lead in quantity and so is a different matter.

What I'm asking about is how much lead you're you're exposed to from recreational shooting, gun cleaning, things like that.

All the quotes from the various studies ever seem to say is "elevated levels".

they never say what "elevated levels" actually means. They don't explain much, rarely give baseline concentrations, or how the "elevated levels" relate to various heath risks, only that they are "bad"....

Look up the OSHA PEL for lead. See that there is a level approved for worker exposure, 8hr a day, 40hr a week. This level is the Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) approved by the govt as being safe.

I wonder how that limit compares with the (unknown to me) amount of lead exposure from shooting related activities. Sure would be nice to see that comparison, wonder why all the studies saying how bad lead exposure is, and to avoid guns and shooting etc., never seem to mention that comparison....

[DaleA]

they never say what "elevated levels" actually means. They don't explain much, rarely give baseline concentrations, or how the "elevated levels" relate to various heath risks, only that they are "bad"....

Look up the OSHA PEL for lead. See that there is a level approved for worker exposure, 8hr a day, 40hr a week. This level is the Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) approved by the govt as being safe.

In the link to the article (the link is included again below) they say:

There is no safe level of lead exposure, said researcher Joseph Braun, director of the Center for Children’s Environmental Health at Brown University.

Thank you for the information about OSHA. I never thought to check OSHA regulations. I'll try to look into it.

So the folk pushing this viewpoint are NOT going to give in if you say you run a 1,000 times greater risk of driving your car one mile to a shooting facility than you do spending two hours shooting at the range. Or that playing football results in a 1,000 times greater risk of injury or death than high school trap shooting. They're just not going to concede the point. It's not in their nature and I think we all know why.

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-n...f%20Pediatrics

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

Anyone know how much lead exposure you get from firing a shot? Or how much from reloading? (cleaning cases, depriming, handling bullets, etc)

Casting is intentionally working with lead in quantity and so is a different matter.

What I'm asking about is how much lead you're you're exposed to from recreational shooting, gun cleaning, things like that.

All the quotes from the various studies ever seem to say is "elevated levels".

they never say what "elevated levels" actually means. They don't explain much, rarely give baseline concentrations, or how the "elevated levels" relate to various heath risks, only that they are "bad"....

I'll offer my experience as one anecdotal data point.

I reload, mostly .45 ACP and almost exclusively using Berry's plated bullets (no lead exposed on the projectiles. I used to tumble and sort cases in the basement. The local indoor range where I shoot used to hold mini combat shoots three nights per month (the fourth week of each month was .22 rimfire competition). The range is 25 yards long. For the combat shoots, half of the range (6 lanes) were shut down. That side is separated from the other side by a foot-thick concrete wall. The courses of fire were set up out on the floor, and the shooter and the safety officer/timer were in front of the shooting benches. Everyone else stayed behind the benches when the range was hot.

After each shooter, when the range was cold again, other shooters would go out on the floor to assist in scoring and taping targets, and sweeping spent brass off the floor. This was an unsanctioned, local competition so everyone pitched in. I often helped with taping targets and sweeping the floor.

Somewhere along the way, my primary care doc at the VA informed me that I had elevated blood lead levels. She made it sound almost terminal but my own research showed that, while my level was high, it was at the "action" level only for children under the age of 12. For adults, it was basically a wake-up call, but not critical.

My supposition was that the primary culprit was probably sweeping the concrete floor at the range on Thursday evenings. So I stopped doing that. I continued to shoot and to reload and I continued to compete, but I stayed behind the benches except when I was shooting my stages. I also moved my tumbling and sorting from the basement to the driveway in front of the garage, and I started wearing nitrile rubber mechanics gloves for ALL reloading operations.

Within a year, my blood lead level was back to the normal range.

I believe the primary culprit was the sweeping of the floor on competition night. The range owner said that other people had also reported elevated blood lead levels, so he changed the protocol. Rather than using a broom to sweep brass on competition nights, he brought in wide rubber squeegees. For range maintenance, before anyone swept the range floor (which needed to be done to get rid of flammable residue from shooting), he started soaking the floor with a hose before sweeping, so the lead in the detritus wouldn't as easily get airborne.

More recently, he has discontinued the Thursday evening competitions entirely. I've never been certain, but I think that was done mostly because of the lead ingesting problem.

[berettaprofessor]

I have serious questions about the "research" and how US News is presenting it

Correlation does not imply causation....for the Latin-inclined, that's cum hoc ergo propter hoc ('with this, therefore because of this'). The fallacy here is that while the two may be correlated, the actual cause of either movement is not pinned down. I could argue that households with more guns tend to be more rural and "more rural" equates with more lead exposure because of old paint....or argue any other of 100 reasons and theories.

I know that I grew up in the 60's and 70's playing in our barns, all of which were painted with white leaded paint, and climbing over our wood fences and smearing the white paint on my clothing. Heck, at one point I repainted all those fences myself under the insistence of my father, all prior to the removal of lead paints from the market. I'd wonder what my childhood levels were....but I grew up anyway and I'm not known as a dummy,

[44 AMP]

Oddly enough, growing up in a rural area myself, it was generally felt that the "lead paint problem" was primarily in the inner cities, where un or undersupervised young children were eating paint chips from the deteriorating paint in tenements.

Also, part of me says "you had painted barns??"

the old barns were mostly just weathered wood, and newer painted ones, were most often red.

I do not know if there was lead in the "whitewash" paint commonly used for fences, I'll have to check into that.

Point here being, it didn't kill Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, or a lot of the rest of the folks of the era, or not so anyone noticed.

In some ways its like asbestos. More people got exposed and over exposed after asbestos was recognized as a hazard than before that, because the removal efforts spread a LOT of it around.

I spent several decades working with radioactive contamination, it is time consuming and expensive to clean it up correctly. But if you don't do it right, you make a bigger mess (and potentially expose more people) than leaving it alone.

[gwpercle]

I was a kid for a long time and ate a lot of things as a kid ...
Never once had the urge to eat peeling paint chips ... they just didn't look yummy .
Sometimes I wonder about that "inner city kids eating paint chips " ...
it smells fishy .
Gary

[tangolima]

Toddlers put things in mouth not necessarily to eat but to explore. They do that all the time. Of course you don't remember doing it. People don't retain memory that far back.

Downplaying known risks only help the agendas of the other side. They are trying to paint everything gun related as hazardous, and every gun person as dumb redneck. Bit by bit they turn the public's sentiment around, and bit by bit they chisel away our rights. Perhaps eventually they will succeed to admend the constitution. Don't let it happen!

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[5whiskey]

I believe the primary culprit was the sweeping of the floor on competition night.

I think you would be right. I have been to at least one professional training where we were specifically warned about sweeping concrete on the range, ESPECIALLY indoors, without PPE.

[44 AMP]

Sometimes I wonder about that "inner city kids eating paint chips " ...
it smells fishy .

It may sound fishy, but I can clearly remember TV commercials (PSAs) showing that exact image. Some toddler, often in diapers, sitting in an apartment window frame, background visible, showing it being in a city, playing in, and munching on the peeling (lead) paint chips.

That's the kind of images they showed us, and showed us a LOT.

There's no question lead is a hazardous material. There's also no question we can, and should do a better job of limiting exposure than we did in the past.

I just don't think the fanatic approach of banning all lead everywhere is the best way to do it.

[Ricklin]

My heritage is commercial fishing. I've been out a few years now, however back in the day.
Gallon cans of red lead bottom paint were like gold. Lead bottom paint was banned back in the 1970's. I can likely find part of a can in my paint locker.
Banned in the USA. I tend to wonder if Red lead paint is banned world wide, and I seriously doubt that it is. Why? Because it is both cheap and very effective.
That is the reason the stuff was horded and used way beyond the ban. The replacement products were both far more costly, and less effective. Lots of old wood hulls in my troll fishery, red lead preserved those hundred year old hulls. The first bowpicker I worked on had the step for the mast in the bed timbers, it was originally part of the butterfly fleet here on the Columbia, iron men in wooden boats. Boats that they painted under the waterline with red lead.

[Koda94]

Originally Posted by DaleA

But does having a gun and ammunition in the house contribute to lead poisoning?

How many millions of guns and ammo in homes in the US vs how many cases of lead poisoning we read about as a health risk?

[44 AMP]

But does having a gun and ammunition in the house contribute to lead poisoning?

Sure, but then so does living on Earth.

IF you set your parameters broadly enough you can connect every thing on Earth with something else on Earth.

A co-relation is only that, some degree of relationship. It doesn't mean anything more than that, without specific data indicating so.

It is the conclusions "based" on the correlations that lead us into error, or salvation, depending on what they are and what we do about them.
Taking a couple of slightly related points and looking at them, in a vacuum (Meaning without taking into consideration any other data about anything) and pronouncing A causes B so if you don't have A, you won't have B, is just simple fallacy. OR a deliberate lie. You choose....

as an extreme example, of the logic, everyone who drinks water, dies (eventually) so therefore, if you ban drinking water, we will be immortal....

Neat, simple, even plausible, as long as you consider nothing else in the universe as applying.

[JohnKSa]

But does having a gun and ammunition in the house contribute to lead poisoning?

It certainly can, but it doesn't have to.

There are two general principles to keep in mind.

1. The dose makes the poison. When people say things like: "There is no safe level of lead." then you know they are pursuing an agenda and not providing useful information. Of course there are safe levels of lead. Taking it to the extreme, 1 atom of lead is not going to hurt anyone. Obviously, at some level it's going to become toxic, but the idea that any at all will cause measurable damage isn't reality.

2. There are toxins all around us. Their existence isn't a problem as long as they don't get where they don't belong in quantities/concentrations that are too large. You can have all the lead you want in your house as long as you make sure it doesn't get into anyone's body except in very small quantities.

Even the medical field uses lead--but they don't eat it. It's used for shielding xrays, etc.

Also keep in mind that the heavy restrictions on the use of leaded gasoline, and other uses of lead have reduced blood lead levels dramatically in the U.S. They are currently around 15x lower than they were back in the 1970s.

All that to say that it makes sense to be informed on the topic and to use that information to take precautions when dealing with lead, especially around children and pregnant women.

Where you will get into trouble is if you pretend that lead exposure can't possibly cause any issues, if you intentionally ignore reasonable safety precautions, or if you don't take the time to educate yourself on the topic as it applies to you and your activities.