Actually, Doe Run Lead Co. operates several lead mining, smelting, recycling, and processing facilities in the U.S., as do numerous other companies. One Doe Run facility is the main supplier of lead for Sierra Bullets. It is indeed unfortunate that old lead smelting plant referenced in one of the links provided was not up to date in their safety standards. I suppose the same could be said of a lot of industrial plants in a lot of different industries ranging from chemicals, to steel, to uranium and plutonium production, and nuclear power generation.
But I do encourage everyone who is concerned about efforts to ban lead ammunition to read those links Drew provided. They provide wonderful insight and evidence of what a couple of us were attempting to get through Larry Brown's thick skull last year when he was blaming deer hunter's bullet fragments for lead poisoning in eagles. The link above has a map showing a map of an area a mile in diameter around that old plant that was blanketed in dust containing 30% lead. Certainly there had to be lesser concentrations ranging miles away. I seriously doubt if all the deer hunting ever done in this country since the Europeans settled it could leave so much lead, in such a high concentration, over such a large area.
Consider also that lead dust is many times more bio-available than expended bullets, shot, or fragments. That means it is much more readily absorbed into tissues and cells where it causes symptoms of toxicity and poisoning. Consider also that this one out-dated facility is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to industrial and commercial sources of lead that dwarf anything ever deposited by shooters and hunters. There were millions of tons of lead used in paints, gasoline, chemicals, pesticides. These sources of lead contamination, on a molecular or atomic scale, are also many times more bio-available than expended shot or bullet fragments. They are more easily inhaled, absorbed, or ingested. And don't forget that volcanic activity has blasted millions of cubic yards of vaporized and super-heated elements into the atmosphere over millions of years, including lead, mercury, cadmium, etc.
Don't ever make the mistake of allowing anti-gunners and anti-hunters to use the red herring of contamination caused by your ammunition in their under-handed efforts to eliminate guns and hunting. If they ever succeed, we won't have to worry about pitted barrels anymore.
