doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com NRA needs to get involved in the lead ban issue

I attended high school in Northeastern Oklahoma which is presently the number one environmental super fund site - a result of lead and zinc contamination from old mines. I delivered my daily newspapers by crossing the infamous "Tar Creek" which is located in the heart of the contamination controversy. Over a period of several decades a mammoth mountain of 1.7 million tons of lead and 8.8 tons of zinc were mined.
But in retrospect, it appears that our class was not noticeably impaired by living in the lead contaminated environment as a large percentage of the group advanced on to become professionals in many fields of study. Baseball’s Mickey Mantle grew up three miles north of our city in the heart of mining country and I think he would have agreed the local beer was more damaging than the water.
Therefore, I find it difficult to understand why all the fuss about lead shot.
RWE

I attended high school in Northeastern Oklahoma which is presently the number one environmental super fund site - a result of lead and zinc contamination from old mines. I delivered my daily newspapers by crossing the infamous "Tar Creek" which is located in the heart of the contamination controversy. Over a period of several decades a mammoth mountain of 1.7 million tons of lead and 8.8 tons of zinc were mined.
But in retrospect, it appears that our class was not noticeably impaired by living in the lead contaminated environment as a large percentage of the group advanced on to become professionals in many fields of study. Baseball’s Mickey Mantle grew up three miles north of our city in the heart of mining country and I think he would have agreed the local beer was more damaging than the water.
Therefore, I find it difficult to understand why all the fuss about lead shot.

Robert, given the fact Mantle died fairly young--although he outlived his father--you might not want to use him as your poster boy for lead pollution issues.

Those that think indoor ranges are safe from being shut down . . . think again. I was the senior officer at an Army Reserve Center. We had a 50 foot indoor range, on which we could fire M-16's with subcaliber devices (.22's) or handguns. Local cops--city, county, etc--also used our range. Along came OSHA and shut it down. Insufficient ventilation, lead dust in the air, etc.

The original lead restrictions came about because of studies of toxicity in waterfowl that had consumed lead shot, and a lawsuit filed because some eagles died after eating shot but unrecovered gamebirds, thus ingesting lead. Since that time, the eagle population has exploded--which means the lead ban folks either need to find another poster bird (condor only works in CA), or else talk about the environment in general. They seem to be focusing on the latter, because there are virtually no studies showing that ingesting lead is causing any problems for upland gamebirds, except doves. If they want to ban lead for dove hunting, or especially on public areas where doves are regularly shot, they can probably make a decent case. For other upland game, there certainly isn't any significant concentration of lead shot (as there can be for waterfowl or doves in heavily hunted areas). But they're planning on coming after lead anyhow.

I hope they don't start making us where dust masks at the gun club.

This is a topic that needs to be revisited and kept active. This hysteria over lead is nothing more than backdoor gun control. I am old enough to remember lead pipes in house plumbing, lead solder for copper plumbing, leaded gasoline, lead paint, shot many thousands of lead .22's in an indoor range in high school, handled lead airgun pellets, etc. Millions of us ought to be brain damaged and mentally deficient, but were not. The only explanation is that lead, while toxic in large concentrations, is not nearly as bad as we are led to believe. My dads' generation played with lead toy soldiers, and while I wouldn't recommend it, I'll bet very few had any lasting effect from it. I have a friend who got unacceptable levels of lead in his blood after working for years breathing dust and fumes in a battery mfg. plant. Chelation therapy cleaned him out and he is fine. I have yet to hear any cry to ban lead sinkers, jigs, or splitshot from fishermen even though tons of these are lost in lakes and streams annually. Funny our exploding population of bald eagles aren't getting into any of that. A few posts here seem to opine that lead ammunition is indeed a terrible environmental problem and I would ask them to check out the Minie' balls they are still digging up on Civil War battlefields. After 140 years they are still intact, stable, and coated with oxides, even in soils that are continually wet down with acid rain. It must be fairly stable stuff, but some folks won't be influenced by facts or common sense. The recent run up in commodities prices has even made lead ammo costly. Lets' not fall for this ruse.

The Semi-Auto Firearm buff- both Rifle and Pistol are the "Canary in the coal mine" of shooting sports - the Government Overlords will be along to collect the "Sporting Arms" from the old Fudds about 5 years after they roll over us.

And yes they should wake up to the back door ammo ban also.

The lead issue is lost to us. In democratic societies, people choose. Legislators representing the will of the people make the laws. There were more of them than us. Reinforcing lost causes is a waste of time. There are more pressing issues for the shooting fraternity than trying to repeal the lead ban.

King Brown, without wishing to steal your Thunder.
The Lead issue is yet ANOTHER issue that needs to be CORRECTLY debated.
Now lets tell it how it is, the NRA in both the U.S. and the U.K. along with the CPSA in the U.K. do absolutely nothing to defend shooting from any threat.For as long as I can remember the CPSA have done zilch to promote our sport and indeed have very often obstructed the promotion of it.
IF the shooting organisations got off their butts and did education and training in schools and colleges, that alone would give us a nucleus of new blood and may go some way in cutting gun crime figures.But it will never happen as long as our elected representatives can sit on their asses in the office doing sudoko.

First things first.
Know it for what it is King!
Going after the sporting guns that are on the lose and putting them out of business for once and all. Sounds pretty pressing to me.
Handfuls of lead shot in millions of acres of wetlands, lakes, ponds and river bottoms doesn't add-up in the world of conservation.
It does however add-up, in the world of taking untold numbers of guns off the streets. Conservation no - world domination...you bet!

That ol' midwestern farmer might have second thoughts about stuffing hi-powered steel shotshells into the familes' old damascus Parker, when the illegals decide to campout on his land for the next ten years.