Another Attempt to Ban Lead Bullets

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Center for Biological Diversity

These idiots again? EPA rejected their last petition to ban lead in ammunition without even getting to the public comment stage. http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=541520&highlight=Center+for+Biological+Diversity

This isn't something that "passes". They're not trying to get a law passed. They've petitioned for EPA to make a determination that the lead in ammunition falls under EPA's regulatory authority. EPA made the determination that it did not have regulatory authority over ammunition when the Center for Biological Diversity filed a similar petition year before last. They won't get any traction insisting that they're right and EPA is wrong on this one either.
 
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It's almost hilarious how they are complaining about how tiny lead bullets would mess up an entire food chain and seek to end all hunting, yet they do not realize all of the environmental hell that would be unleashed by banning hunting. The forests would be full of overpopulation of some species, starvation, unhunted predators overhunting, and the list goes on and on.
 
Do you know where lead comes from?
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Goodness, are we back to the ridiculous argument that because lead is a natural occurring element that it can't possibly have any detrimental effects?

Sure, lead occurs naturally, but it certainly doesn't naturally end up in the concentrations, forms, and locations humans introduce it. While I don't agree with the Center for Biological Diversity's position, to dismiss the possibility of damage to wildlife via ingestion simply because lead comes from the earth is asinine.
 
So I would suppose Gettysburg should be a wasteland. A lot of lead went flying around that place.
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You seem to be implying that is a binary event, either lead is harmless or it wipes out all life in its path. That's an awfully narrow view.
 
One should never attempt to use science to further a personal agenda. One of the greatest things I learned while getting a graduate degree is peer review, and how careful you must be to prove something before you report it.
 
I agree. I think most people were concerned at some point during the last gulf oil spill. By using the logic that lead is not harmful to the enviroment because it is naturally occuring.

Wasn't the oil pouring out from the ocean floor a naturally occuring substance?

Edit to say I do not support banning lead. heck 99.9% of what I shoot is lead cast bullets. I will be seriously hurt if they ever are banned, but let's not completely dismiss the dangers though. Too often people support their cause to the point were they overlook some truths. When you ingore the truth you lose credibilty
 
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Laugh at them all you want, there have been plenty of idiots in the last 50 yrs that have gotten things passed and approved in this govermnent that would have been laughed out of the halls of congress or the surpreme court.
 
One thing to think about......the people who matter and vote on such laws and issues by and large are not shooters/hunters at all. They are academic elites who have been raised in urban metropolitan areas and their opinions are formed by the public and media.
We must never forget this.
 
Folks, it doesn't do us any good to use poor arguments about lead.

Do you know where lead comes from? Really??? Anyone at all knowledgable about science will eat you alive on a statement like that. There is a world of difference between lead locked up in the ground naturally and lead that has been taken out and processed for use.

Lead is bad, we all know that, except for people that don't believe in science of course. It's been banned in paint for many years, also in anything that children may come in contact with.

If you want to argue for the use of lead bullets you need to come up with some science that shows it isn't harmful. Personally I doubt you can do that but knock yourself out. I'll admit to being a little conflicted, I believe it probably isn't the smartest thing to be using but I have many thousands of rounds of lead core bullets that still need to be used up, and my target .22's never see anything but lead bullets.

There are altenratives, copper/gilding metal expanding bullets for rifles and pistols, and things like bismuth for shotguns (although they seem very expensive).
 
There is a world of difference between lead locked up in the ground naturally and lead that has been taken out and processed for use.
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While this is essentially true, it's also been demonstrated that lead bullets that have been lying around in the dirt for a few months form an oxidized coating and don't leach into the ground water...nor do they present much of a hazard to anything unless eaten, or presented in a powdered form and inhaled.

Put it to the test. Bury a lead bullet 6 inches deep, and dig it up a few weeks later.

Wheelweights don't get ground up into powder and in order for any significant leaching to occur, the lead or the lead alloy pretty much has to be in the presence of acid in liquid form...like tomato or citrus juice. There's even some evidence that lead water pipes don't present that much of a hazard except in the minds of a few alarmists.



While it's always a good idea to reduce the amount of lead that we ingest, some of it has gone a bit overboard. Once they got the lead out of gasoline...and the airborne lead that resulted from it...about 90% of the lead that actually presented a hazard disappeared. I've been a bullet caster for approaching 50 years. If it was all that dangerous, I'd have been dead a long time ago.

Back to the topic.

I've been telling people for years that the antis know that they can't get the guns, so they'll come after the ammunition. Sarah Brady as much as said so not long after she got on her career soabbox. If memory serves me, here words were: "We may not be able to get your guns, but we'll damn sure get your ammunition."

There are those who are in denial about a lead ban or a prohibitive ammunition tax, based on the environmental issues. "They'll never get that passed." or "That would be a 2A infringement."

Yes they can, and now...it wouldn't. Taxing is not denying. It only makes it more expensive. It's still available...but you'll have to pay through the nose for the privilege.

Guess what. They don't care. They don't care abut the whales or the owls or the ducks or the geese. They don't even care about your children. They want control, and the best way to get it is to ban as many gun types as possible, and tax the ammunition off the market for the ones that are left.

The power to tax is the power to destroy. See to your ammunition stocks.
 
It is awfully arrogant of Man to think we can create a mess that the planet can't clean up.
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And it is equally arrogant (or naive) to think with certainty that Man will survive the clean up.
 
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Laugh at them all you want, there have been plenty of idiots in the last 50 yrs that have gotten things passed and approved in this govermnent that would have been laughed out of the halls of congress or the surpreme court.
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So true.
Now the scary part, to me, folks are now starting to use science, faulty or not, to limit or outlaw the shooting sports. Don't believe that these attacks will go away. I'm guessing that they will only increase, and later ones will be better prepared with facts that will be harder to dispute.
 
It is kind of funny that they are shooting themselves in the foot by not taking into account the impact of the 11% ammo tax on wildlife conservation.
I'm no hunter, but in reality the amount of ammo actually expended in the woods vs at the range must be minuscule, and the amount of lead in a bullet vs the vastness of nature is minuscule.
 
There are altenratives, copper/gilding metal expanding bullets for rifles and pistols, and things like bismuth for shotguns (although they seem very expensive).
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There is not really practical realistic alternatives.

Shotgun shot is very different because they are projectiles much smaller than the bore, this means they still rearrange and constrict as necessary.
They can even be kept from coming into contact with the bore of more open chokes with the shot cup. The shot does not need to engage the rifling like a bullet does to work.
They also are intended for use are very short range, where the lack of density is not as critical, and from a platform that can have the payload more varied in weight and size than most other firearms.

Did you know that a lot of lead alternative shot also contains a large percentage of lead?

Bismuth is primarily produced as a byproduct of mining lead. A very small amount in comparison to lead is mined, and the supply cannot easily be adjusted upwards to meet greater demand.
In 2007 bismuth prices went up to $14 a pound from a little increased market pressure. That is how volatile and limited a commodity it is.
By comparison lead is generally under $1.
The bullet is one of the most expensive components in ammunition, and is by far the highest amount of material used in a lot of calibers.
Ammo costs could easily be several times higher than they are now if bismuth had to be used and the consequences of demand increased the cost. It is less expensive now than it would become, and it is already expensive.

In addition to generally wanting a material of high density, even many less dense substitutes are not legally allowed:
Federal law prohibits most inexpensive metals from being used as bullets. Technically it is handgun bullets, but the ATF has extended it to many popular rifle calibers, applying the law to many calibers if they are chambered in a firearm technically sold as a handgun.
For example AR and AK pistols mean that .223/5.56 and 76.2x39 ammunition is handgun ammunition as it pertains to the law.
Even the .308/7.62x51 is considered handgun ammo per the ATF.
So you can see that not only are handguns covered, but most popular rifles as well.

The law makes it illegal for common elements like iron and steel to replace lead. Even various types or quantities of brass are illegal.
So you couldn't even have steel bullets like you have steel shot because it is already illegal. Some common metals form oxides much harder than the metal itself, that can damage a barrel. This includes many metals, but a great example is aluminum, where the oxide aka corundum is the hardest element after diamond, and is used for grinding and shaping many things, and even makes up the grit in a lot of sandpaper.
Copper costs a lot more than lead, and would dramatically increase the price of ammo.


There is also other concerns, lead is easy for your average person to work, having a low melting point, and being soft and workable even at room temperature.
The melting point of most materials puts the creation of quantities of bullets outside the realm of the average person.
A person could make individual ones on a lathe, but that would hardly allow for the creation of them in much quantity.
Molten lead at the right temperature also allows a dual purpose of annealing hardened case mouths. That would also be lost.


So most alternatives would increase the cost of ammo significantly or be unsuitable or illegal.
Contrary to various antigun statements increased cost also does not impact criminals, who go through very small quantities of ammo (some criminals even have the same rounds in a gun for years, or mixed types of ammo because they use it so rarely and fire so few shots that they added only the number of expended rounds back to the magazine.)
Nor does it impact individual killers where the cost of ammo is insignificant, nor the type of killers that don't plan to be around to pay for any debt they may incur.
The people primarily impacted are recreational shooters that go through large quantities of ammunition by comparison on a regular basis.
 
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The lead shot law should never have passed but it did. If you look hard enough you can find science to back up almost anything.
We now have windmills killing more eagles than lead probably ever killed and it is sanctioned and subsidized by the same gov that outlawed the shot and now wants lead bullets. Don't try to make sense of it but don't discount their intent.
 
I'm conflicted about this. There aren't any materials that can do all the things lead does as cheaply as it does in regards to shooting. On the other hand there have been valid scientific studies that do show that lead from shoots does impact wildlife.

Right now I just pulled up a few journal articles saying as much, yet most of them seem to deal with birds. The ban on lead shot for waterfowl hunting makes sense, since a lot of species of waterfowl do ingest the pellets. From what I'm reading, however, ducks/geese/etc aren't the only birds effected. Scavengers like Ravens and Condors as well as raptors like Eagles and Hawks also are getting exposed to lead from bullets and/or fragments left in carcasses and gut-piles.

Maybe a bit more diligence in recovering bullets and fragments from kills could go a long way in reducing these issues while taking the steam out of these peoples' argument?

Kinda makes me wonder what impacts the future-wonder-polymer-ammunition that gets mentioned now and then will have on the environment if it ever takes off.
 
It is awfully arrogant of Man to think we can create a mess that the planet can't clean up.
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I think it awfully naive to fall back on things like this rather than hard fast data.

Realistically, you want to find something out, you study it. You don't dismiss or accept any idea because it would be "awfully arrogant" to think it true/false.

That said, at the end of the day, even if it does have some level of negative impact, it has to be weighed against economic concerns. If it causes SOME damage, but not anything catatrophic, then I say we simply accept it as a cost of doing business.
 
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