Article About How "Hunters" Are Against Lead Bullets

[theotherwaldo]

-And so we should ban lead in all shooting sports because lead in gut piles may poison some animals.

Yeah, right.

-And what about black powder shooters, by the way?

-Also, what about the simple fact that copper is an herbicide that will kill all of the trees? (Probably the next anti-hunter panic.)

 

[Riomouse911]

Ca banned lead ammo for hunting in “ condor zones” ages ago. “Condors have high lead levels on their blood, it must be from gut piles from animals killed with lead bullets! Ban them!” the scientists crowed.

Recently Ca banned lead everywhere for hunting, because the lead levels in condor blood hasn’t changed one bit over the years. Really? So it wasn’t gut pile lead then, was it?

Junk science, plain and simple. Create a narrative, craft studies and conclusions that support the pre-ordained narrative, then sell it to liberal legislators who want to make gun ownership so onerous that all us dinosaurs die out and take guns and hunting with us. The NYt is Bloomberg elitist approved, anti gun, anti hunting, anti freedom propaganda from cover to cover. Take anything, and everything, that paper prints with a hefty dose of salt!

Stay safe!

 

[wankerjake]

You are absolutely right. This is the part of the article I do not believe. That number seems to be way out of line with what I think reality is.
It would not be to many years and as they "Humane Society" says we would run out of those animals. Sometimes estimates are used to make things look worse than they really are and I think that is the statement in the article that does that.

It’s quite the statement. Outrageous, you might say.

The fact that they are quoting the Humane Society as reasonable evidence begs the question of objectivity.

I just reread the first 10 paragraphs or so and the bias is very readily discernible. Numerous emotional arguments are utilized in place of facts. The structure and wording clearly form a narrative favoring one side. Politics are even directly mentioned, Obama vs Trump, in the second page. There is a very clear agenda here.

That doesn’t make every point invalid, but that article has a motive. Namely, I would suggest, to make hunters think the only responsible way to hunt is with lead-free ammunition, and that a ban on lead for hunting is not only reasonable, but the ONLY sensible and just solution to the senseless inadvertent poisoning of harmless animals (which is a huge problem and killing 10 to 20 MILLION animals per year).

 

[GooseGestapo]

When ammo costs a week salary per shot, we’ll have de facto ammo control.
And ranges will close, firearm sales will practically cease.

Within a generation, firearms ownership will essentially cease.
Game over!

And no, Georgia is not clammering for a ban on lead. (Iess affordable ammo). So make it 49 states looking to ban lead.

 

[Mike OTDP]

-And what about black powder shooters, by the way?

Yup. Muzzle-loading firearms, particularly the traditional designs, are built around lead bullets. Minie balls and similar designs need pure lead to expand or compress to engage the rifling, it's what they are designed for.

Personally, I think it's a hysteria created by the Propaganda Press. They both hate us and understand nothing of what they are blathering on about.

 

[Deanimator]

I'm not a hunter.

I'm a bullseye pistol shooter.

I shoot NOTHING but hard cast and swaged lead bullets and don't have the slightest intention of switching to something else. In the case of my Giles .38 Special M1911, I CAN'T switch.

I'm no more likely to change my behavior based on anything in the New York Times than I am based on what's in the Weekly World News or Rodong Shinmun.

 

[labnoti]

Bismuth can be a good alternative for someone wanting to shoot muzzleloaders without lead. I want to shoot muzzleloaders without lead. I don't want to not have a choice or to force my choice on others. The limitation that keeps me away from muzzleloaders more than anything else is the lack of availability of lead-free caps. I'd still shoot flint, wheel and matchlocks, but dirty-caps are a big turn-off to me. It's a pity because there's an existing ability to make lead-free caps that perform very well, but not enough will to do it.

For smoothbores with shot, besides bismuth, tungsten is widely regarded as having better performance than steel or lead. It may not be the choice of someone firing an antique smoothbore with a damascus barrel, but if a person has got to do that, let them do it with lead by all means. I want the ability to make safer choices for myself and my children, not to control what anyone else is doing.

 

[cheygriz]

I take anything from the "enviro-wackos" with a grain of salt. I believe these folks are as big of a threat to our country and poirv way of life as the "politico-wackos."

 

[Deanimator]

I take anything from the "enviro-wackos" with a grain of salt. I believe these folks are as big of a threat to our country and poirv way of life as the "politico-wackos."

When I worked for a NASA contractor in the '90s, one of the NASA Environmental Health guys kept having the soil at the NASA range repeatedly tested until he got the result he wanted so that he could have the range closed.

 

[doubleh]

I went back and re-read the article. The only thing I found with any basis in fact was that her copper bullet did the job. No scientific studies were quoted or even mentioned. Just because the Humane Society says something doesn't make it true.

 

[Deanimator]

I went back and re-read the article. The only thing I found with any basis in fact was that her copper bullet did the job. No scientific studies were quoted or even mentioned. Just because the Humane Society says something doesn't make it true.

Actually HSUS is avowedly anti hunting.

 

[jmr40]

The author actually wrote 2 articles. She is a vegetarian and the other article deals with hunters and killing animals. I thought both were pretty well written and balanced. She pointed out that there was no difference between killing your own meat and buying it at the grocery store. The article about lead free bullets I think over states the health concerns of using lead. But the fact is that lots of hunters are concerned about ingesting meat shot with lead bullets. I'm not, but have no problems using copper bullets because they actually kill better than lead.

Lead has been banned for waterfowl nearly 30 years and has had zero negative effect on hunting even though at the time lots of guys thought the sky was falling. Copper bullets were designed as a BETTER alternative to lead years before the concept of lead poison was a concern. Copper bullets kill better than lead and cost no more than any other premium bullet such as Nosler Partitions.

No reason for the paranoia.

 

[Riomouse911]

You don’t hunt small game with a .22 do you?

If you think the compressed copper-polymer rounds shoot as well and are as effective as lead .22 Lr bullets in the hunting fields you’re part of an army of very, very few. In Ca, you can’t hunt squirrels or rabbits with lead .22 rounds anymore, “ for the condors.” And none of the “green .22” rounds shoot very well in any of my .22s at all.

It’s the end game that’s the issue: no more guns, no more hunting, period. It’s their small “common sense” steps that add up, as a death by a thousand cuts is slow...but its still death.

How they choose to divide and conquer changes with every year that passes, and this is just one more.

No paranoia here, just factual observation. I have lived in Ca the past 40 years and have watched as others I don’t vote for or support have used these same incremental steps to gut the 2nd amendment more and more every year.

It doesn’t take long to realize you’ve been sold a bill of goods, but once that box is open you’re done. Once I can retire and leave, I will.

Stay safe!

 

[Ohen Cepel]

If lead was so mobile why is it that I can did up a .50cal bullet from the Civil War and it is still .50?!?!

This is simply another squeeze tactic to make hunting/shooting that much more expensive.

 

[George P]

Their strategy of divide and conquer seems to be working well from the answers I see here

 

[cheygriz]

Folks need to realize that this is part of the overall "green" movement. "Green" has nothing to do with protecting the planet, it's purpose is to destroy the American way of life, capitalism and American prosperity.
This is just one more "tool" in their bag of dirty tricks.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

I don't know about you, but I've never heard another hunter express these thoughts.

You have now.
Lead hysteria is just another of the anti 2A / hunting crowds tools.

Their strategy of divide and conquer seems to be working well from the answers I see here

My thought exactly

 

[WiTom]

Don't forget you can't melt copper in your molds, like the temperatures lead melts at, and so when bullets are getting less and less available, as was the case years back, guess who doesn't shoot. I would love it if the regulations, that are passed, are for the safety of us, and the animals, but sorry, it will always come back to bite us, with more control over what we do, and how often. Copper bullets are a great alternative, until lead is banned completely.

 

[primalmu]

I am a veterinarian. I know veterinarians who work with wildlife and actually deal with these cases of lead poisoning. It strikes me as odd that hunters (generally speaking) take pride in the fact that they are involved in conservation efforts, yet the minute someone says maybe lead ammo isn't the best thing for wildlife they get all up in arms about it. I don't condone efforts to legislate a lead ammo ban at all, however the science (a scary word for many, it seems) has concluded that lead ammo can and does negatively impact wild life.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

science (a scary word for many, it seems)

The first thing many scientists discover is how to keep the flow of money coming in.

 

[Deanimator]

I am a veterinarian. I know veterinarians who work with wildlife and actually deal with these cases of lead poisoning. It strikes me as odd that hunters (generally speaking) take pride in the fact that they are involved in conservation efforts, yet the minute someone says maybe lead ammo isn't the best thing for wildlife they get all up in arms about it. I don't condone efforts to legislate a lead ammo ban at all, however the science (a scary word for many, it seems) has concluded that lead ammo can and does negatively impact wild life.

1. To which animals do you refer?
2. How was the alleged lead poisoning contracted?

 

[wankerjake]

Speaking of science, is there any in the article? I don't see any... just a bunch of biased assertions. Some things are testable after all;

According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, lead exposure is the leading cause of death in California condors, the largest land birds in North America, which three decades ago were on the brink of extinction.

That's an assertion. Did they care to share the research or link a single citation? Hmmm, they didn't.

And between 10 million and 20 million animals, including eagles, hawks, bears, vultures, ravens and coyotes, die each year not from being hunted, but from lead poisoning, according to the Humane Society.

This is not even plausible. The Humane Society is well known for their truthful research...

But the possibility of threatening her family’s health was too much.

“As a nurse and a mother,” she said, “I know that no amount of lead is safe to consume.”

Uh yeah, everyone knows that. And nurses and mothers are definitely more qualified to answer that than scientists. Have scientists studied this?? I mean it isn't possible, right, that this may not be correct and that humans don't readily absorb lead in the diet, and that millions of humans have safely consumed meat killed with lead for some number of years.



Some people just don't like to have smoke blown up their rear ends and be told that it's all factual and unbiased. Anyone who has written an unbiased review of evidence knows this isn't one. Anyone who knows how to write a persuasive essay using emotion and half-truths and alluding only to the science that fits their narrative, knows that's what this is.

Recognizing the article for what it is doesn't make one afraid of science. The issue that lead fragments probably do harm certain populations is worthy of research and discussion. Being reluctant to jump to the conclusion that the US should ban lead ammunition for hunting, with the limited evidence available, which is hardly discussed in this article btw, and also asserting that there are other consequences of such an initiative, isn't being ignorant. Or hypocritical.

 

[primalmu]

1. To which animals do you refer?
2. How was the alleged lead poisoning contracted?

https://www.peregrinefund.org/subsites/conference-lead/PDF/0307 Tranel.pdf

"We found over 130 species of animals (including upland birds, raptors, waterfowl, and reptiles) have been reported in the literature as being exposed or killed by ingesting lead shot, bullets, bullet fragments, or prey contaminated with lead ammunition. The impacts of ingested lead on wildlife included decreased survival, poor body condition, behavioral changes, and impaired reproduction."

(Emphasis added.)

I'll leave you to sort through the citations for the full list of 130 affected species.

 

[JohnKSa]

One thing to keep in mind is that the "Humane Society" quoted in the article is not the American Humane Society, but the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

The American Humane Society is an organization dedicated to the welfare of animals. They run animal shelters across the U.S.

The HSUS is an animal rights organization similar to PETA. They do not run any shelters although they do donate a small amount--1% of their budget--to shelters run by other organizations.

Here's the article in question--I had to find it by searching on the content. It's interesting that the NY Times article failed to identify the group, referring to them by the ambiguous and somewhat misleading appellation "Humane Society".

https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/lead-ammunition-toxic-wildlife-people-and-environment

Interested in the sources that the HSUS used in writing that article? Well, if you ask them nicely, maybe they will tell you. Here's the bibliography from the article:

Detailed sources are available upon request.

To be fair, it might be this article from the Humane Society International, the international affiliate of the HSUS. It seems to have exactly the same statistics. But still no references.

https://blog.humanesociety.org/2017...n-lead-ammo-fishing-tackle-federal-lands.html

The 10 to 20 million birds a year estimate is credited to The American Bird Conservancy by another source I found, and although I was able to find this article on The American Bird Conservancy website, the estimate is provided without any reference to its source.

https://abcbirds.org/article/nation...iller-millions-wild-birds-health-risk-humans/

We found over 130 species of animals (including upland birds, raptors, waterfowl, and reptiles) have been reported in the literature as being exposed or killed by ingesting lead shot, bullets, bullet fragments, or prey contaminated with lead ammunition. The impacts of ingested lead on wildlife included decreased survival, poor body condition, behavioral changes, and impaired reproduction."

"Being exposed" to lead is not equivalent to being harmed by it. Depending on the amount exposure and other factors, the exposure could be essentially benign.

It would be more useful for them to provide information about animals HARMED by exposure rather than providing such an open-ended statistic.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

It would be more useful for them to provide information about animals HARMED by exposure rather than providing such an open-ended statistic.

The fact that such an open ended stat was provided says a lot.