Nationwide Lead Ammo Ban

[BillCA]

The gun-banners are at it yet again.

This time it's a nationwide ban on lead ammunition.

Groups Seek Ban on Lead Ammunition, Fishing Tackle

Five environmental groups want the EPA to ban lead in ammunition and fishing tackle, arguing that millions of animals are dying from eating lead-shot pellets or carcasses contaminated by lead.

The American Bird Conservancy and the other groups filed a 100-page petition with the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday seeking the ban under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

American Bird Conservancy Press release

WASHINGTON, D.C.— A coalition of conservation, hunting and veterinary groups today filed a formal petition with the Environmental Protection Agency requesting a ban on the use of toxic lead in hunting ammunition and fishing tackle. Major efforts to reduce lead exposure to people have greatly reduced the amount of lead in the environment, but toxic lead is still a widespread killer in the wild, harming bald eagles, trumpeter swans, endangered California condors and other wildlife.

“It’s long past time do something about this deadly – and preventable – epidemic of lead poisoning in the wild,” said Jeff Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Over the past several decades we’ve wisely taken steps to get lead out of our gasoline, paint, water pipes and other sources that are dangerous to people. Now it’s time to get the lead out of hunting and fishing sports to save wildlife from needless poisoning.”

An estimated 10 million to 20 million birds and other animals die each year from lead poisoning in the United States. This occurs when animals scavenge on carcasses shot and contaminated with lead bullet fragments, or pick up and eat spent lead-shot pellets or lost fishing weights, mistaking them for food or grit. Some animals die a painful death from lead poisoning while others suffer for years from its debilitating effects.

The five groups filing the EPA request are:
American Bird Conservancy
Center for Biological Diversity
Association of Avian Veterinarians
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
and
the hunters’ group Project Gutpile

I've never heard of "project gutpile" and suspect it may be made up of a few people who are casual hunters who are also environmental activists.

[Sefner]

Ban an element? That can be found naturally in the wild? I would also like to point out their clever manipulation of words:

millions of animals are dying

That's a nice, unprovable, statistic. How can we prove animals are dying from lead poisoning without finding them, capturing them, and then running tests on them (something I'm sure these environmentalists would be all for ). Also what is millions? Is it 2 million, 10 million, 999 million, 1 billion (that's a thousand millions!)? And is this "millions" per day, per year, per decade, per eon?

So then you read further and find a number. It's 10 million to 20 million. That's a pretty huge goalpost. I'd really like to see how they find stuff like this out.

Some animals die a painful death

A lot of animals are incapable of feeling pain. That is, they don't have the neural pathways necessary to experience pain.

With all of the other environmental disasters going on (and there are some massive ones), you have to ask yourself what their real agenda is if they are wasting precious funding on lead poisoning from bullets.

[Doyle]

I've seen some pretty convincing evidence that shows microscopic (but still toxic) pieces of lead getting scattered throughout the meat of deer that was shot with a traditional lead bullet. I can see how those would cause problems both in carrion eaters and in humans.

Seeing as we now have excellent non-toxic ammo available, I really wouldn't be terribly opposed to a lead ban for hunting ammo. In theory, the street price of non-toxic stuff should come down if every manufacturer were producing it. Actually, I'd be more conserned with a ban in shotgun ammo than in rifle ammo. The only think right now keeping me from using Barnes TSX or Hornady GMX ammo is the price.

[aarondhgraham]

You said:

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

In theory I can't really argue with you here,,,
Maybe we do have the ability to make lead free ammo,,,
I'm not so much a traditionalist that I would not be interested in this.

But you are forgetting one thing,,,
These folk are not really concerned about the animals,,,
This is simply one more tactic towards their end goal of eliminating firearm ownership.

Maybe some of the folk really care about the birds,,,
But they are being exploited by the gun haters for the anti-gun agenda.

If they can't get around the protection of the 2nd amendment,,,
They will simply make firearms ownership too expensive by regulating our ammunition.

This is an end around run,,,
Not a legitimate concern for animal welfare

Knowing this to be their true agenda,,,
Please do not allow yourself to be swayed,,,
By the false sentiments of their trumped up cause.

.

[DiscoRacing]

Imagine then... how many cowboys,,,indians,,and all of the people before us that didnt have all this precious time and technological advances to waste on this great research..have died just from lead poisoning alone.

Maybe..even... lead poisoning is what made the dinosaurs go extinct..

Just food for thought...
.... or my twisted opinion

[lwfiredog]

WoW , Millions huh? I dont see much coming of this. Its a natural element that has been used for centuries. If millions of animals were dying from lead poisioning, it just sounds like they'd be dropping all around us. I see more in the street as road kill then I do just dropping over dead. Or were they sick from lead poisioning and wandered into the street?

[DiscoRacing]

The car/truck that hit them had lead on the battery posts and in the battery itself...that poisoned the animal.... not the impact of the vehicle itself.

[armoredman]

One answer - hogwash. We lived on game killed by lead bullets for centuries, food grown in fields where game was shot, and I don't see any twisted mutated lead poisoned animal offspring limping around gibbering. This is garbage, pure and simple. If lead poisoning of game animals was such a concern, and so dangerous, our ancestors would heva died out from the horrors, and there would be a game animal alive on the continent.
Hogwash.

[NJgunowner]

If there were millions dying... wouldn't there be a big mess?

[ADB]

But you are forgetting one thing,,,
These folk are not really concerned about the animals,,,
This is simply one more tactic towards their end goal of eliminating firearm ownership.

Do you have any evidence of that, or are you just making up motivations for them?

One answer - hogwash. We lived on game killed by lead bullets for centuries, food grown in fields where game was shot, and I don't see any twisted mutated lead poisoned animal offspring limping around gibbering. This is garbage, pure and simple. If lead poisoning of game animals was such a concern, and so dangerous, our ancestors would heva died out from the horrors, and there would be a game animal alive on the continent.

Our ancestors also believed that bleeding people cured disease, that sickness was a curse from God, and that eating pills of mercury could make you live forever.

Given the horrendous squalor and short lifespans that plagued most of human history, "We've always done it this way" is a ridiculous argument that should be viewed with the highest suspicion. Actual modern science shows that lead, even in small quantities, is dangerous to have in the food system. Claiming that just because you can't see a problem from your backyard means it can't possibly exist is at best naive.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Anybody go to Google scholar or the medical data bases to look for refereed articles on the topic?

That's the way to do it.

[lemosley01]

Center for Biological Diversity is a front group for the "Humane Society of The United States" (note this is NOT the same as your local Humane Society).

The HSUS is notoriously anti-hunting and pro-animal 'rights'; it's highliy likely that many of their members are also anti-2A, since anti-hunting/pro-animal-rights and anti-2A sentiments nearly always go hand-in-hand.

Cam Edwards has been talking about this on NRA news.

As I recall, there has never actually specified a solid upper OR lower threshold for lead exposure based on anything that could be called 'hard science'.

In fact, how much lead have shooters have been exposed to for decades? It seems the shooting community and hunters would have an abnormally high number of cases of lead poisoning. That doesn't appear to be the case.

There is more here than just wanting to save animals. Ask them for the studies and methodology, along with the actual data used to establish '10-20 million animals dead from lead poisoning'. I'm betting you won't get any of it, because it doesn't exist, or at least it's not anything that could be called science. More likely they find some dead animals, assume they died from lead poisoning, and then extrapolate that data out.

They don't need data because they know they can go to Congress and legislatures like California and New York and repeat this; the anti-gunners won't care about facts or truthfulness and will gladly take whatever these groups say at face value.

If you don't think these groups will just make things up based on the flimsiest of observations, see: DDT and Alar.

[arcticap]

Most of the county would be over run with deer in no time at all and many thousands of jobs would be lost across a slew of industries.
Congress won't even think about gun control or gun bans right now because of the potential political repercussions.
There's no chance for any of this kind of legislation to pass. The political stakes are simply too high.
The insurance companies are not for having more deer causing more car accidents, more Lyme disease and all that.
I mean really, the folks living in farm states would have fits.
What about the food supply and farm profits and exports?
The urban states already have increases in deer/car accident rates every year and the insurance companies always advocate lowering deer populations.
The argument is what's more important, the quality of human society or animal welfare?
Think about it!
It happened with moose and car accidents too. And moose seasons and bag limits have lagged far behind the increase in car accidents involving them.
What if no one wanted to hunt deer because ammo was too expensive or banned?
The thought is so ridiculous that it's pathetic!
If most people stopped hunting, society would suffer tremendously.
What these groups are saying is simply a bad joke.
What's next, contraceptives for deer?
No sane, responsible politician would vote for such buffoonery.

[azredhawk44]

We ran these people out of AZ when they tried it with our local game and fish department about 2 and a half years ago.

[Lavid2002]

Ban an element? That can be found naturally in the wild? I would also like to point out their clever manipulation of words:

There are plenty of things that are naturally found in the wild that aren't all that great for wildlife and the planet. Oil, Methane, Mercury, etc...


Lead in the ground and billions of lead bb's being launched into the marsh every hunting season are two totally different things.

That being said I am an avid hunter who primarily duck hunts. I also melt lead wheel weights into boolits for pistol loads and I would hate to see this happen.

[Sefner]

There are plenty of things that are naturally found in the wild that aren't all that great for wildlife and the planet. Oil, Methane, Mercury, etc...

That is precisely my point. Plenty of things harm animals in the wild, a lot more than lead does. The fact that they are going after lead makes their agenda of "environmentalism" mildly suspicious. I feel that if it was their end goal that their resources would be better spent advocating for tougher littering penalties, forest clean ups, or the use of lead-free alternatives (instead of an outright ban because it produces the suspicious reactions that they are getting). I'll admit that the lead from shot harms animals. My point is that there are tons of other things that also do. Their efforts would be better spent targeting (pun intended) those things.

[HiBC]

Sorry,folks but I am disgusted with the folks who are sympathetic to this garbage,One of the greatest threats to liberty is agency beaureucrats creating restrictive regulation.One great testimony to the falseness of their motivation is the banning of incandescent lightbulbs,replacing them with mercury laden flourescents.Its a big lie.Yes,by all means do not paint cribs with lead base paints.We get that.
I used to live in Aurora,Illinois.The have a Galena Street.Galena is lead ore.I would see ice cube sized lead crystals in exposed earth in town as I delivered newspapers.When the EPA is willing to declare Aurora ,Illinois a hazardous area and evacuate eveyone and shut the place down and concrete over it,then I might give the arguement credibility.
These are the same folks that would capture the endagered spotted owls and plant them where they wanted to shut down a project.
This often led to the death of the transplanted owl.(Other predator birds)
Lead wheel weights will go away via the EPA in 2011.
These folks want us to become extinct,and it is done one ratchet click at a time,freedom gone forever.
Lead has properties of density,dead mallability,softness,low temperature moldability.
Long range shooting,muzzle loading,blackpowder cartridge shooting,22 rimfires,and the idea that a shooter can make his own bullets from salvage material are dead without lead.
Please,do not give an inch on this.Fight it however you can.

[highvel]

Any legislation that negatively effects the firearms, or ammunition, of the American people should be resisted with all available means!

Once some insignificant law is passed the ramifications can be "right" threatening!

Legislation may be difficult to pass originally, but is VERY easy to amend and/or expand, most of which the public will not even be aware of until the changes are made into law !

First lead, then what, any projectiles?

Our government doesn't like the constitution and the protections it gives us; they are constantly trying to chip away at it and would love to throw it out completely so they could control every aspect of our lives.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

the hunters’ group Project Gutpile

I've never heard of "project gutpile" and suspect it may be made up of a few people who are casual hunters who are also environmental activists.

I suspect it is probably an astroturf group designed to give the effort "credibility" so that they can tell Congress "Look, hunters want this too!' Looking it up, I can only find two members of the group: Anthony Prieto and Paul Andreano.

Paul Andreano has a personal website and is a raptor biologist. For someone who is supposedly interested in hunting, he doesn't discuss it on his website. Anthony Prieto appears to run the Project Gutpile blog, which hasn't published anything since 2008 (hmmm, wonder what happened in 2008 that caused it to stop publishing? Its last item was a post about how Bush was relaxing EPA protections - darn him!). He has a similar article purporting him to be an enthusiastic hunter and touting his group in Audobon Magazine; but as far as I can tell these two guys are pretty much the entire organization.

My main concerns are:

1. Is it actually a problem, and if so, in what conditions is it a problem?
2. Does the solution actually address the problem?
3. Is the "nontoxic" replacement for lead actually less toxic than lead? (look at the Army's problems with "nontoxic" green ammo testing in Massachusetts - they ended up polluting the water table there with much more deadly poisons than a 100 years worth of lead use would have done).

My major suspicion is that this really has blank-all to do with wildlife conservation and is really about putting a friendlier face on gun control.

[Edward429451]

Careful of these sympathyzers, they will turn you in so fast you'd think you have a meth lab instead of a relading room. I wouldn't trust any of them who even sounds the least bit sympathetic to the animal cause.

Perhaps I'm putting the cart before the horse. They haven't passed this yet. It's coming though. It has that Governmental idiocy ring to it that assures it will pass at some point.

[BlueTrain]

First, I'd have to say that losing jobs isn't going to bother anyone. At least it hasn't lately. And second, if you shoot at an indoor range, you're probably ingesting an unhealthy amount of lead yourself. That's something real to think about. It doesn't harm animals, though, and total metal jackets are way to expensive for private citizens to use, too, I suppose. Oh, I don't imagine it's any worse than smoking and that never killed anyone that I know of.

Naturally the real problem is legislators who listen to their constituants. What we need is a government that totally ignores their subjects. It would be much more efficient.

[Al Norris]

Blue Train, your sardonic and sententious comments will be lost on some few.

[spacecoast]

Relative specific gravities and melting points (degrees F)

Platinum - 21.4, 3220
Gold - 19.3, 1945
Lead - 11.35, 621
Silver - 10.5, 1760
Copper - 8.96, 1983
Nickel - 8.8, 2647
Brass - 8.4 to 8.7, 1710
Iron - 7.9, 2797
Stainless steel - 7.5 to 8, 2750
Zinc - 7.13, 787
Cast iron - 6.8 to 7.8, 2150 to 2360

Lead is obviously the most effective bullet in terms of density and low melting point, but there are alternatives available now (like copper) which are much more costly and harder to fabricate (not to mention lighter). Raw copper is 200%+ more expensive than raw lead.

Zinc would seem like a likely candidate, and is only 1/3 the price of copper (same price as lead), but would make for some pretty lightweight bullets. (Post-82 pennies are 97.5% zinc). I have no idea what a pure zinc bullet would do to the bore, but chances are that copper-plated ones would be fine.

Iron and steel are both relatively cheap, but are relatively light and have really high melting points as well. Not to mention, shooting steel would seem to be really hard on a barrel unless it was plated with copper or something else.

I'm not advocating any certain position, just throwing out some facts. I like my <relatively> cheap lead bullets A ban on lead would make it hard on all of you who fabricate your own, even the lack of wheel weights after 2011 is going to drive up the price

[BlueTrain]

Antipas, you're gonna havta use smaller words just for me to unnerstand.

But seriously, I thought this subject of steel ammo for shotguns was past history. I've never owned a shotgun, though, and likely I don't keep up with the developments. And also seriously, airborne lead is a concern at indoor ranges but it certainly has nothing to do with hunting. And that's really why total metal jackets, which I think is the term, is now available.

Back when I was handloading, I don't ever recall any cheap lead bullets. Could you get them at Cheaper Than Dirt?

[alloy]

Is it ok for birds and frogs to swallow a bunch of copper or zinc pellets?
Got a penny stuck down a cast once it turned green.

Maybe gold would be better.