doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Simon says, Oh, never mind…

This is just more repetitive and silly nonsense Preacher. In the last Lead Thread that you provided the link to, you repeated your baseless idea that scientists who fake or fudge data all eventually get caught... and that they pay a hefty penalty.

I quickly refuted that by reminding you and the other anti-lead ammo advocates here about the 2009 Climategate scandal where leaked emails showed that climate data was being falsely manipulated by researchers at Penn State University and East Anglia University in order to propagate the notion that the Earth was warming far faster. After that, talk about Global Warming suddenly became very quiet for about a year until the scandal faded from the public's short memories. Then the "Scientists" went right back to providing more highly questionable data, and calling anyone who questions it a Climate Denier. No need to rehash some of the Global Warming debates we've had here. I have also told about the trout dinner I enjoyed in college. The trout were supplied by a researcher who was studying the effects of acid mine drainage contaminating Pennsylvania trout streams. He told me he sacrificed the fish for us to eat at a college party, and would place the blame on low pH exposure in his study results. He explained that manipulating data was pretty common to achieve the desired conclusions. He went on to tell us how, at that time, it helped a lot to work the word "Cancer" into any grant application... just as the new favored buzz-word to procure funding is now "Climate Change".

When Ben Deeble did one of his huge dumps of links to anti-lead ammo studies. I read them and noticed a very wide disparity in what the researchers claimed constituted a lethal blood lead level in ducks. I have repeatedly asked the anti-lead true believers here numerous times to explain that. They all can't be right. So do we believe them, and just pretend that the data doesn't come close to a consensus? It would seem you want us all to simply stop asking you uncomfortable questions, and you instead hope Dave Weber will lock or delete the Thread and shut down any further discussion that doesn't agree with your preconceived notions. That is intentionally deceitful behavior.

One study I referenced earlier, was posted in the Lead and Condors Thread. It told the horrific story of the eagle that had blood lead levels that were alleged to be far beyond lethal, and literally off the charts. Are you saying that you actually believe that blood lead levels can be so high that an avian research facility couldn't even measure them? Well, it would appear you do.

And are you really saying that you also actually believe that an eagle with such a massive and fatally toxic dose of lead could actually have the ability to fly, and still be strong and coordinated enough to perch on a tree branch? Somebody needs to call the Vatican to investigate such a miraculous event, because they might wish to build a church on that spot.

So who even got the chance to prove that was a fake study? As with most of what passes for science on the subject of advancing lead ammo bans, there was no peer review. When they publish this bullshit, they don't provide the carcass or the lead laced gut piles for independent toxicological analysis. So what exactly is left for readers who can actually comprehend that there is no way for it to be even remotely credible. They just put this garbage out there and count on naive guys like you to accept it, and to be critical of anyone who dares to question it.

Here is an interesting study for the few who are capable of critical analysis. The Chicken Little's are unlikely to get past the first sentence without again jumping to the conclusion that lead ammo has to go:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0300985818813099

Note first that the first sentence of the Abstract specifically emphasizes ingestion of lead from spent ammunition as a cause of mortality in eagles. Then note that this was a study of 93 eagles that were admitted and either died or were euthanized due to lead toxicity over a period of 11 years from 2004 to 2015. This was done at the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota. Now go to Table 1 on page 291 and note that only 27 of these 93 birds were found with Lead particles found within the gastrointestinal tract (clinicalradiographs or necropsy) So only 29% of the sick birds had lead particles in their digestive system, and the study does not say what the source of those lead particles was. Yet the Abstract focused only on lead from spent ammunition, and nowhere in the entire study was there mention of all of the many other sources of lead contamination in the environment.

So even if lead ammo was the sole cause of lead poisoning in those 27 sick eagles, which is highly doubtful considering that many other sources are much more bioavailable, that amounts to about 2.45 birds per year admitted to a facility specializing in treating sick or injured raptors... Which is hardy excessive compared to the numbers that are killed due to windmill strikes and numerous other causes. From 1986 to 2017, the leading cause of Bald Eagle deaths in Michigan was being hit by cars. So with that knowledge, surely people like LGF will stop driving a car, because it would be hypocritical to continue placing birds at risk. Plus as Ted noted, we have a healthy and rapidly expanding eagle population. I am now much more likely to see a Bald Eagle in Pennsylvania than a native Ringneck Pheasant. But for this, the Chicken Little's are running around screaming that lead ammo must be banned. Remember that the mortality rate in eagles is greater from electrocution and collision trauma than of poisonings from all sources including lead. And lead ammunition is not the sole cause of lead poisoning in eagles. Far from it. It's sad to think that any shooter or hunter would simply bury their head in the sand and just allow the anti-gunners and anti-hunters to incrementally destroy us. They won't ever stop, even if they succeeded in banning lead ammo entirely.