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Joined: 08 Mar 2016 Posts: 120 Location: South Dakota

Let me just say I don’t support any kind of lead ban.

Next go ahead and correct me if I’m wrong or missed anything but I didn’t see anywhere on the sporting lead free site where they support any kind of lead ban either ( although they definitely have some questionable stuff on there) . While they also state they want to preserve hunters choice of ammunition.

I guess I just don’t pay attention to something’s I should but boss ammo always got a thumbs up for keeping 16 gauge non tox ammo going at reasonable prices. I see now they are down to one offering that is roll crimp and not the usual shell.

Who else makes 16 ga bismuth beside Kent?

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1381 Location: Denver, Colorado

The lead question is a fight that is still coming. The science behind the original lead bans is not universally respected (despite other claims that it might be). As both a former EPA contractor and an EPA scientist, I can tell you confidently that any lead ban is a thinly-veiled attempt at eliminating your 2nd amendment rights. I know this will not be well-received here by some and for that I apologise. But...I'm a "just the facts" kind-of guy and that is how I see it after 30 years in the environmental business.

Lloyd3,
Thanks much for you valuable input, and I agree 100%

all the best,

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Joined: 04 Mar 2019 Posts: 1844 Location: Central ND

Thanks Lloyd3

This is a controversial topic as shown by previous posts and I hate politics invading science and my hobby time but here goes.

The evidence of lead shot ingestion and subsequent toxicity is quite strong. There are an overwhelming number of peer reviewed, well designed studies that show both ingestion and toxicity of lead shot and weights. These studies have consistent results in multiple countries, from a lot of different institutions with different funding sources.

I would much rather not have to ever shoot bismuth or steel shot again but on my land, it is non tox only. I am by no means a lead toxicity expert but I am a Veterinarian with extensive exotic experience, research experience and wildlife biology knowledge and interest. I am an avid reader who can distinguish crap studies from good studies. I do not have a political agenda on this subject.

Here are a few articles. There are way to many good studies to list and many require a pubmed subscription.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6675766/

Bellrose FC. Lead poisoning as a mortality factor in waterfowl populations. Illinois Natural History Society Survey Bulletin. 1959;27:235–288

http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6dq3h64x

https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/effects-of-lead-ammunition-and-sinkers-on-wildlife.html

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1381 Location: Denver, Colorado

Eng-pointer:

Clearly this subject is near and dear to you. To have all that data available upon call is quite remarkable.

There are indeed lots of studies (and some are better than others). Does lead have the capacity to be toxic in certain circumstances, yes it does (as do all of the metallic salts). There were also studies done (funded by the various industries affected) that came to very different conclusions as to how vectoring and exposure affects that toxicity. Sadly, all of those industries are now either gone or greatly diminished, largely run-over by the vast and endless power of the Federal Government. There isn't anybody left (with any financial heft) to argue the case otherwise now, and a new push to further restrict lead and any type of lead-exposure is being queued-up as I write this.

I am not a toxicologist either (and I haven't been formally educated much past my primary bachelor's of science degree in geology). I have however worked with several toxicologists and chemists over my many years in the environmental industry and my work has been directly affected by the politics and resulting litigation from the original attempts to legislate "bans" on the use of lead in industry (and shooting). Moreover, as a government contractor for most of the last 30-years or so, I have been directly exposed to "how the sausage is made" and I can confirm with confidence that the process isn't very pretty. Politics and government power have their own unique ambitions and the science becomes merely window-dressing at some point (believe me). It's a means to an end, and that end has never been in doubt. I do not come to my conclusions lightly, as I would much rather be confident in the capacity and then the intentions of any government regulators. Sadly, the culture and politics that pervades almost all forms of government these days strongly convinces me otherwise.

*Last edited by eng-pointer on Tue Jan 30, 2024 1:06 pm; edited 1 time in total*

Lloyd,

I certainly respect your opinion and do not have any government regulatory experience just clinical experience treating lead toxicity first hand. I have seen it in raptors and I have seen it in waterfowl. I also have evaluated studies and have friends who work for Delta waterfowl and are who are wildlife biologists for state wildlife departments. I am as sure as I can possibly be that it is a real world problem with serious real world wildlife implications.

As for as data at hand it is as simple as having a Pubmed account which is available to everyone though subscription to journals are not cheap. As to this being a federal government conspiracy I think that would require that it is a worldwide conspiracy which I find highly unlikely. The conclusion that lead is a very real concern with wildlife is not just a US conclusion it is a conclusion held by many countries. It is easy to say this is all some undefinable conspiracy but that can be said about any issue that people disagree on. There is just no evidence that I have seen at this time.

Thanks for the civil discussion as I wish that was more the norm,

James

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1381 Location: Denver, Colorado

James:

I too respect your position here. As a veterinarian you will likely have insights that I couldn't begin to understand. However, to dismiss my long-term observations as being an attempt to define this problem as some sort of "government conspiracy theory" sorely misses the point.

Government growth and expanding regulatory power serves itself only much too well, and very-much at the cost of our own liberties and freedoms. To love the science but to ignore how it is being used these days is almost willful ignorance.

As much as I hate to admit it, science in my lifetime has largely been corrupted and politized (scientists have both egos and families that they desperately need to feed). Most (if not all) studies these days are conducted with a deliberate outcome in mind (they wouldn't be funded otherwise). They are structured accordingly and then used to justify whatever politically motivated outcome is desired by the funding entity. The studies that don't meet these foregone conclusions are buried, and the scientists that conducted them are accordingly punished for their failures. They do not get funded or "promoted" (financially or otherwise) within the systems they rely upon for their continued existence.

We are sleepwalking to our own demise as a constitutional republic and many of our institutions have been corrupted to that end. That is my only point.

Gentlemen,
I have been reading these posts closely, and you both make good points.
Having done my own testing on our Regulated Shooting Grounds and our Farm, I found the reality of the lead problem to be very very small in Upland birds, as I said before in the Fly Ways there is some concern. I am also concerned for the Shooting Grounds like Nemacolin Woodlands where there are small streams running thru the property.
However I put very little credence in the Government funded studies. Having worked with Bill Palmer our PGC Grouse Biologisi during his Grouse studies, and seen 1st hand how the government pays for the results they want to accomplish, I am untrusting of any of these so called scientific studies. The funders want to see a certain outcome, they have an agenda. When Palmers studies disproved what the funders wanted the out come to be, they buried most of the study. I believe this may have been done with the government funded lead studies also. To say I am not a trusting person is right on the money. I was a very good US Army CID Special Agnent, I trust no one. Especially when they have their own agenda.

all the best,

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1381 Location: Denver, Colorado

Something else I thought about after writing all that: if the 2nd Amendment wasn't so directly involved here nobody would even give a damn about any of it, even way-back when this subject first came up in the 1970s. A few wildlife biologists would clearly be concerned about the health of some waterfowl (in a very specific set of circumstances on the Eastern Shore of the United States) and you could throw-in perhaps a few overly-hardcore environmentalists. Still, not a lot of folks really gave it much thought. Leaded gasoline was clearly much more of an issue then (and a legitimate one at that).

It is my understanding that it wasn't even the geese and ducks that were being affected that caused the initial hue and cry about it all, it was a few bald eagles that were eating those wounded and dying birds and were then having their own lead toxicity problems. Those eagles were seized upon by the anti-gun folks (with that surreptitious axe to grind) and they became the poster-children of the "big lead problem". Using that very useful "propaganda", lead shot was then banned for waterfowl all over the country, even in places where it simply wasn't a real problem. Conflating those initial issues to now ban lead use in the uplands and for big game hunting in this current political climate is simply their next step.

It's all about control and it always has been.

Lloyd,

I would love to see studies that showed no significant lead issue or some other tangible evidence the issue is not a concern. Do you have any citations, etc you could provide?

James

Joined: 20 Dec 2013 Posts: 26 Location: Wisconsin

Loyd ,
I would like to see those studies as well . Here in east central Wisconsin historically significant waterfowl hunting grounds have been shut down to facilitate lead remediation out of the lake bed . I thought DDT was the significant disruption in the bald eagle decline during decades in the past ....

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1381 Location: Denver, Colorado

James, I'd love to see them too, except that they don't exist because neither the federal government nor any big corporations have seen a need to do them (and they are the only entities who can realistically afford to fund them). How exactly does one prove the negative here?

It's simply priorities, and it's pretty telling (at least for me) as to how they are being approached. The world is full of problems, and some are very compelling(!) such as starving children, abject tyranny, and horrible diseases. The only reason this issue is being pushed forward for a resolution at this particular time is because of the 2nd Amendment in the United States Constitution. Lots of people don't like it (for many reasons) and they'd like it to effectively go away. If that's going to take a "death by a thousand cuts" to do it, then so be it.

Lloyd,

As I am sure you know in scientific studies one does not prove a negative it fails to support a positive and I have yet to see a study that does that. Again I am happy this has been a cordial discussion and please don't take this as a personal attack because it is not meant to be, it is a rebuttal (we obviously don't agree and we both have strong opinions based on our experiences and knowledge base). Your argument is that there is a multinational government and corporate conspiracy to actively suppress all data that shows a lack of lead toxicity in a round about way to ban guns and undermine the second amendment. This assumes that the mining industries lacked money or power to bring forth their own studies. The shooting industry lacked the money and power to fund studies. In additional all the scientists that had contradictory data to the desired conclusion succumbed to this conspiratorial entity to either falsify their data or suppress publishing it ( I have done pretty sensitive research in a public university and never felt this pressure). All in the name of a oblique attack on the right to bear arms. In my opinion that is a very thin argument.

James

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1381 Location: Denver, Colorado

James: The push to first control and then ban the industrial use of lead has been ongoing since the 1970s ( & probably even earlier). The mining companies (& other industries) did put forth their own scientific studies and they essentially stopped the regulators in their tracks at that time. Other than for waterfowl, lead has continued to be utilized as the primary material for firearm projectiles around the world. For over 40 years now ( it seems), the effort has continued to intensely study elemental lead in order to find a further justification for a more-complete ban on it's use. The only reason I can see for the recent push to finally institute a more-complete ban is that the state of the current political climate is emboldening for it's detractors

Of all the environmental contaminants that I have had to contend with in my 30 plus years as an environmental scientist, lead seemed to be be the least immediately threatening and yet it continues to be singled out for the most scrutiny. In the several mining waste cleanups l participated in over the years, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, sulphur, and the other naturally occurring minerals (including asbestos & the radiologic elements) were always the more pressing concern in the field work we were doing, and yet lead was the one that was focused on as the on-going "hot button" issue and it was always the greatest political concern.

Perhaps if I was more-schooled in risk-assessment than in remediation technologies I would see all this differently but... there you have it. I'm sorry if you find my observations and arguments "weak" but I find your rather dismissive rebuttals interesting, considering that we're having this conversation on a webpage that celebrates a specific gauge and type of shotshell normally loaded with lead. It strikes me as being more than just a little ironic and maybe even a bit delusional?

Edit to add: I don't want my answers to be snarky (as it's just not productive) but...I can't help but be reminded of the COVID mess we just went through as a country. James (eng-pointer) is asking me to "trust the science" and trust the motivations of the scientists conducting the work and for the most part I generally do. It's only after living with this "lead" issue for my entire working life that I've become so-jaded by what I perceive to be the attitude of our "designated experts" in this country. When politics becomes involved then the "science" tends to get a little "dicey", and the bigger the perceived "political" component, the more the science tends to get massaged. I smell a rat here, I just do... and there's no other way to explain it. I know I'm inferring some bad intent here and I don't really have any way to back-up my assessment other than my gut-feelings on the subject. It's only been since COVID and my recent work with the agency that I have finally come to believe this. I'd like to be convinced otherwise, but until that time this is what I'll believe.