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NRA Launches Pro-Lead Website
ideonexus writes "The National Rifle Association has launched a website defending the use of lead ammunition against scientists and environmental organizations who argue that lead bullets are poisoning the environment and tainting game meat with a known neurotoxin. The rise and fall of lead levels from gasoline and lead-based paint are strongly correlated to the rise and fall of crime rates in communities around the world."
Actually many range mine the lead out of their backstops for resale back to either home bullet casters or commercial casting outfits.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I own a small range, and that's precisely what we do - we gather the shot bullets and remelt them for casting (helps if you designed the backstops to make that easier). Saves a ton of money. Ditto, we collect all the brass from dumb shooters who leave it there - even more savings. The green aspect rides along for free - we just want our expensive metals back, it's like a super high grade mine with a heck of a lot less mess made to the envirornment in the process - at very low cost to us. I see a comment about Barnes below - no, we get them too. They float on the melt (along with the cupro-nickel normal jackets), and we sell the copper back to the refiners.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
The amusing thing is that the increase of bullets (i.e. people owning guns) has also contributed to drops in crime rates...
Actually, violent crime in the United States has dropped significantly since the 1980s and early 1990s, but so has gun ownership.
Cost. Generally if you remove lead from bullets you see a price increase of nearly an order of magnitude. If you completely remove lead from ammo then you essentially drive the cost of target shooting up to a point where it can only be afforded by the rich.
Hunting wouldn't be much effected - neither would crime, as neither needs a significant volume of ammo, but target shooting would be a thing of the past. Passing laws with such consequences shouldn't be done just because it "might maybe sorta possibly help something somewhere". It needs to have very specific reasons based on scientific study. Not just of the "lead is bad, mmmkay" variety, but actually showing that the lead usage specifically in ammunition is reason for concern. So far, the data just doesn't show any major problem there.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, public health, and their findings about lead and its toxic effects, what have the Romans ever done for us?
And while I understand not all pro-gun people are rabid GOP deniers of [insert topic they don't like], it's a pretty good correlation.
No, it's really not a good correlation. There are a lot of very vocal anti-gubmint gun owners, who make the rest of them look kind of loony. The vast majority of gun owners I know are somewhat left of center. NPR listening, democrat voting, pro-choice, not interested in NASCAR or truck pulls, do not believe Obama has a Kenyan birth certificate, are not members of the Klan, have mufflers on their motorcycles...
Most gun owners don't get into the public debate. For one, the anti-gun folks use lots of emotion and almost no logic to make their point, and there's not much reason to engage them. Secondly, the vocal part of the pro-gun folks use lots of emotion and almost no logic to make their point, and there's not much reason to engage them.
Hell, the medical community puts mercury into injections, and expect you to inject it directly into your blood steam.
There's no solid evidence of health risks from thiomersal. The ethylmercury it breaks down into is as different from methylmercury in its effects on the body as ethyl alcohol is from methyl alcohol. It doesn't bioaccumulate, leaving the body in about 14-18 days.
But, that does not mean that there is anything necessarily wrong with a large piece of meat coming in contact with lead for a short while.
Lead, on the other hand, bioaccumlates quite well. You don't want to eat much in the way of small game shot with lead. There is no safe level of lead exposure and most of it will get sacked away in your bones to be slowly released over years. (Children and pregnant women get much higher doses in the soft tissues due to the way their bones undergo remodeling.)
Small game animals killed with shot tend to have many small fragments of lead in their tissues. The UK's Food Standards Agency advises against eating meat killed with lead shot. Eating less than half a pound of small game would increase your lead exposure by eightfold above average, and about half a pound of deer shot with led would double it. We're talking a teensy 8 oz steak here.
With the introduction of softer, heavier alloys for non-toxic shot, there is no legitimate reason to be using lead shot other than bull-headed stubbornness or an utter disregard for anything other than your own pleasure. It's you and your family that you're poisoning after all.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Gun ownership isn't as much as a Right vs Left thing, but more towards where people live. Urban vs Rural. Also Urban vs Rural is tied to the Right vs Left thing.
Democrats in more Rural areas tend to have High NRA ratings, Republicans form Urban areas tend to have lower ones.
However most Republicans come from Rural Areas and Democrats come from Urban areas.
If you live in an Urban Area, You need and see government assistance every day. Sewer/Water, Garbage Pickup, Police/Fire that less then a few minutes away... You really don't need a Gun if you live in Urban area, it really would just get you into more trouble then it will help you, if you are in danger you call the police and they can get there fast enough to help.
If you live in an Rural Area. Most of the government assistance goes to farmers, but You need to have your own wells, you need to buy from a private garbage company or drop your stuff off at the dump, Volunteer Fire, that could add 30 minutes to respond. Police that is disperse and could take a while to respond too. Having a gun, is more of a useful tool, and chances are you are not getting into trouble with it.
I live in a Rural Area and I do not own a gun. However many of my neighbors do, and it really doesn't bother me, I am fully comfortable going up to them with a riffle in their hands and talking to them.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Lead fragments found in randomly sampled packages of venison donated to food banks.
Turns out that slugs leave metal fragments too.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
In most states, game animals must be shot with an expanding bullet. Either soft point or hollow point. This is intended to increase the size of the wound channel and likelihood that the shot will be rapidly fatal.
In war, these bullets are banned by the Geneva convention. Wounds are hoped to be survivable by humans and the bullets are intended to poke a hole in enemy bodies that removes them from battle.
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Well, considering the ATF - in its infinite malice - has banned solid copper and brass hunting projectiles as "armor piercing" even though they work EXTREMELY well as hunting bullets
Except they didn't do that. They banned brass pistol ammo, which is very rarely used in hunting.
The attack on lead ammo is about gun control, not lead abatement. Period.
Except the bill in question (AB711) places no restrictions on the sale, use or possession of lead ammo, as long as you don't hunt with it.