doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Possibility of Limited Lead Authorization

I'm glad that you recognize that it's proposed. The mex prez will try to paint himself as a hero for slashing it down. The new President knows that Americans won't buy those goods, if they don't value the price increase. But, I hope we haven't forgotten what it means to start from a position of weakness.

If there's a shot at bringing back lead for things that're currently banned, it's probably going to happen through leverage rather than kumbaya. No? How about that mayor of Miami, he seem quite a bit sharper than the double downer mayors of the biggest left wing cesspools.

I bet, the lefty mayors, lose the funding anyway and get leveraged by their own entitlement constituents for less gruel from the smaller trough. We may actually get to watch a gov brown type choose between human beings and bait fish or scavenger birds.

I usually don't participate in these useless rants, but this thread and others related to the subject of non-lead requirements have plucked my nerves.
A lot of you are too young to recall how all this started, beginning with the manipulated statistics surrounding the dying eagle found by the USFWS at Remington Farms in the late '70's which resulted in the lead shot ban for waterfowl, continuing with California's attempted ban on all lead ammo, and now an effort to ban lead for upland birds elsewhere. The end result of all this is (and will be) (1 ammo manufacturers will scramble to produce a product that meets the "requirements" at our expense, (2 the population who enjoys shooting sports will diminish further, and (3 loss of revenue from license sales will further cripple state wildlife agencies. The same scenario can be applied to the recreational fisheries industry.
I don't understand how outdoorsmen cannot see past their collective self interest noses when it comes to this subject-- the end result will be the destruction of all firearms-related activities--not just the use of vintage doubles.
I was (and am) waterfowl hunting before the lead shot ban, and vividly remember how poorly steel shot performed. Many times I witnessed shot geese and ducks, heavily hit, fly off to die from blood loss, never recovered. So, when improved non-tox became available I stepped up and purchased the best ammo available-- to the tune of $1.00+ PER SHELL. In all my decades of waterfowl hunting I've never found a duck or goose that seemed to be dying from some mysterious malady.
Allow me to pose a question--- have any of you found a dying Black or Turkey vulture or a coyote dead or dying????
We need to unite and be proactive regarding the lead ban-- rescind it!!!

The train's already left the station on the lead ban for waterfowl. Early arguments were that steel performed poorly, and that it was more expensive than lead. The cost argument is no longer valid. And while lead remains ballistically superior to steel, current steel loads are significantly better than those that were available 25 years ago.

Another currently active topic points out that different species exhibit different tolerance for lead. And when it comes to vultures and coyotes . . . no one cares. Unless, all of a sudden, we start finding a lot of dead vultures or a lot of dead coyotes with no obvious cause, no one is going to get concerned. And, if they've ingested lead, it's quite possible that they're simply more tolerant of it than are eagles and waterfowl.

Most attempts to ban lead for upland birds, outside of California, have been unsuccessful. Where upland birds are concerned, the "good science" to support such action simply does not exist. The advisory committee to the Minnesota DNR stated as much in their report. And it's not likely to ever exist, given the difference between waterfowl hunting and upland hunting. Shot fall is so dispersed in nearly all upland hunting settings that it's highly unlikely upland birds will ingest lead shot. Tall Timbers, which does research on quail and mortality factors, examined something like 300 birds--in an area where far more birds are shot than would occur in typical upland hunting--and found lead pellets in only two gizzards.

What we're facing from the antis is: "Lead is poison and therefore should be banned." That message is being sold, constantly. And the question we have to ask is: "Where is that "poison", spread by hunters, impacting the population of X species?"

Not much point in fighting battles lost long ago. Waste of energy.

I have little problem worrying about trains that have left stations long ago. I think if someone's asking where's the poison spread by hunters, one option would be to ask a hunter.

If the topic is about lead shot and waterfowl, it might be that some hunters will say, no big deal but we find lead in quail, or no big deal but we find lead in woodcock, or huge problem we find lead in hunter discarded deer gut piles, or we like to point out that deer hunters don't always retrieve lead bullet wounded deer, or we might find lead in coyotes but who cares, or we might find lead in vultures but who cares.

If one insists on building up the image of one species example as a glorious national bird. Why bother with the science, the hunter keeps saying that the image is more important. Wouldn't the anti think, let's get the hunter to help, he'll gladly agree to quietly accept an obscene eagle body count at the base windmills, yet walk us through the pervasive nature of lead. Ask the hunter, they might say no big deal if the lone state of kali hatches most anti regs and policies that sooner or later don't fly over the mid section of the country.

I keep wondering, the issues seem to be about tactics and strategies, not truly science. How do we know? Some say there's only science that fit my tactics or strategies, that's okay by me. But, why try to placate hunters while it's clear that some pro strategies just don't work from grass roots motivation, to the courts, to the highest regulatory levels?

Larry, I highlighted three portion of your post I'd like to respond to.

We KNOW that the antis will not stop, ever. Not in Cali and not in the rest of the country. We also know that it is only a matter of time before they win in Cali and eventually win across the rest of the United States IF WE CONTINUE TO BEHAVE IN THE FUTURE AS WE HAVE IN THE PAST.

A defensive position, which has been the position, will ultimately fail as those on offense will continue to chip away. It's not a battle, it's a siege. Some may think this a stretch but as Trump has just demonstrated, if we want to turn the tide, we need to go on the offensive. Start up the battle and take back the lost positions. If some of us are correct, and we have 4-8 years of a federal government reducing it's footprint, being more responsive to the people than vocal special interest groups, then now is fertile ground to bring that engine back into the station.

We're musing the possibility of slowing/stopping antis' lead ban everywhere (because on the evidence that's where it's heading). old colonel elicited opinions and suggested possibility of lead under conditions, maybe even waterfowling with muskets etc.

This would have to come after state-hunter-possibly wildlife coalitions drive home to publics that lead for upland in hunter-magnets Kansas and Iowa is all green. Current law is no guarantee it will stay that way. Stopping the nibbling first, becoming recognized poster girls for finding a balance, is the fastest course to holding our own and finding niches for odd fellows with smoke pipes.

I work on this daily in the controversial climate of forestry on a provincial, national and international scale; over 50 years our organization has never lost a battle with governments and the biggest corporations of their kind. I read ignorance of forest dynamics frequently here, of clearcutting particularly. Perceptions can be changed by better information, treating all publics with respect. Take a page from the antis: bashing gets nowhere.

King, that's already been tried, in varying levels of competence and with little success. Why propose we continue down the same path?

James, I added a para while you were responding to mine. Our organization is a world leader because it doesn't do it over and over; insanity as you say. The first thing to advance or promote anything is getting the poohbahs' attention by doing things differently. Petitions don't work, politicians don't look at them. What gets attention are ideas and innovation that the clunks haven't thought of---or can't do with their top-down bureaucratic and technological interference.

My suggesting old colonel's notion isn't a fantasy is not the same path. My notion of stopping the nibbling by doing something imaginatively makes the point that we'll lose lead completely if we don't change public perceptions. Canada removed the long gun registry, a response to the Montreal massacre, because publics saw from a reasoned, long campaign that it didn't make sense. It took years.

Stopping and starting stuff takes thinking, getting off our asses. That's how the antis do it---and it's working. Fight talk is great for stoking the troops. What do you do then?

As you may recall in the past, and in this thread, I perceive the balance as being as being out of whack. When friends call each other odd, who needs antis?

As for clear cutting, it's a term of endearment. I believe it's a code word that says welcome left, jump in the water's great! Have I ever told you about the time a racist, misogynist and a pedophile priest went into a bar?

Obama created much of this debt and we have nothing to show for it.