Well, first of all, they are substantially more expensive than lead because most of the non-lead ammo rounds are actually copper. Additionally, a
study from the US Department of Ag found that copper rounds are much more likely to cause fires. What has a bigger ecological impact, lead ammo or a forest fire?
I think that shooting ranges should have a lead remediation plan. In that case, it is concentrated contamination as the percentage of lead within a given area is high enough to have environmental impacts.
I think you should tell your wife, the nurse, that you intend to feed lead to your children. Even in, and to include small amounts. When she protests. Tell her that you don't mind if your neighbors feed lead in small increments to your children. See what she does. State in the local paper, that you encourage your children to eat lead in any form. See how long it takes before child services take your children away (and they SHOULD).
What get's me, is that you think it is ok to tell everyone around you, that you encourage and demand that their children be forced to eat lead. For that is EXACTLY what you are saying. If your kids are eating at a friends house, you have no idea what they are eating. If their friends parent(s) is a hunter, you will not KNOW. You are less than insensitive, you are belligerently ignorant of the effects of lead on the general development of life (
TO ALL KNOWN VERTABRATES) to the presence of lead.
Your stance on lead is ignorant, and your basis for defending lead in any product is not only willfully ignorant, it is dangerously stupid.
Laws took decades to change in the US from the 1920's because of corporate lobbying, not poor understanding of what lead can do to people. Whole generations of Americans were uselessly exposed to lead poisoning. The effects are profound. It damages the nervous system and causes brain disorders. Excessive lead also causes blood disorders in mammals. Like the element mercury, another heavy metal, lead is a neurotoxin that accumulates both in soft tissues and the bones. Lead poisoning has been documented from ancient Rome, ancient Greece, and ancient China.
From Wikipedia
Lead poisoning (also known as plumbism, colica Pictonum, saturnism, Devon colic, or painter's colic) is a medical condition in humans and other vertebrates caused by increased levels of the heavy metal lead in the body. Lead interferes with a variety of body processes and is toxic to many organs and tissues including the heart, bones, intestines, kidneys, and reproductive and nervous systems. It interferes with the development of the nervous system and is therefore particularly toxic to children, causing potentially permanent learning and behavior disorders. Symptoms include abdominal pain, confusion, headache, anemia, irritability, and in severe cases seizures, coma, and death.
Routes of exposure to lead include contaminated air, water, soil, food, and consumer products. Occupational exposure is a common cause of lead poisoning in adults. According to estimates made by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), more than 3 million workers in the United States are potentially exposed to lead in the workplace.[1] One of the largest threats to children is lead paint that exists in many homes, especially older ones; thus children in older housing with chipping paint or lead dust from moveable window frames with lead paint are at greater risk. Prevention of lead exposure can range from individual efforts (e.g. removing lead-containing items such as piping or blinds from the home) to nationwide policies (e.g. laws that ban lead in products, reduce allowable levels in water or soil, or provide for cleanup and mitigation of contaminated soil, etc.).
Elevated lead in the body can be detected by the presence of changes in blood cells visible with a microscope and dense lines in the bones of children seen on X-ray, but the main tool for diagnosis is measurement of the blood lead level. When blood lead levels are recorded, the results indicate how much lead is circulating within the blood stream, not the amount being stored in the body.[2] There are two units for reporting blood lead level, either micrograms per deciliter (µg/dl), or micrograms per 100 grams (µg/100 g) of whole blood, which are numerically equivalent. The Centers for Disease Control (US) has set the standard elevated blood lead level for adults to be 10 (µg/dl) of the whole blood. For children the number is set much lower at 5 (µg/dl) of blood as of 2012[3] down from a previous 10 (µg/dl).[4] Children are especially prone to the health effects of lead and as a result, blood lead levels must be set lower and closely monitored if contamination is possible.[2] The major treatments are removal of the source of lead and chelation therapy (administration of agents that bind lead so it can be excreted).
Humans have been mining and using this heavy metal for thousands of years, poisoning themselves in the process. Although lead poisoning is one of the oldest known work and environmental hazards, the modern understanding of the small amount of lead necessary to cause harm did not come about until the latter half of the 20th century.
No safe threshold for lead exposure has been discovered—that is, there is no known amount of lead that is too small to cause the body harm.
Wildlife and lead poisoning[edit source | editbeta]
A large tan bird of prey with dark brown neck feathers and a bare red head sits on a dead cow in a desert with dead grass and scrub
Critically endangered California Condor can be poisoned when they eat carcasses of animals shot with lead pellets.
Lead, one of the leading causes of toxicity in waterfowl, has been known to cause die-offs of wild bird populations.[2] When hunters use lead shot, waterfowl such as ducks and other species (swan especially) can ingest the spent pellets later and be poisoned ; predators that eat these birds are also at risk.[3] Lead shot-related waterfowl poisonings were first documented in the US in the 1880s.[4] By 1919, the spent lead pellets from waterfowl hunting was positively identified as the source of waterfowl deaths.[5] Lead shot has been banned for hunting waterfowl in several countries,[4] including the US in 1991 and 1997 in Canada.[6] Other threats to wildlife include lead paint, sediment from lead mines and smelters, and lead weights from fishing lines.[6] Lead in some fishing gear has been banned in several countries.[4]
The critically endangered California Condor has also been affected by lead poisoning. As scavengers, condors eat carcasses of game that have been shot but not retrieved, and with them the fragments from lead bullets; this increases their lead levels.[7] Among condors around the Grand Canyon, lead poisoning due to eating lead shot is the most frequently diagnosed cause of death.[7] In an effort to protect this species, in areas designated as the California Condor's range the use of projectiles containing lead has been banned to hunt deer, wild pig, elk, pronghorn antelope, coyotes, ground squirrels, and other non-game wildlife.[8] Also, conservation programs exist which routinely capture condors, check their blood lead levels, and treat cases of poisoning.[7]
Farm animals[edit source | editbeta]
Cows and horses[9] as well as pet animals are also susceptible to the effects of lead toxicity.[2] Sources of lead exposure in pets can be the same as those that present health threats to humans sharing the environment, such as paint and blinds, and there is sometimes lead in toys made for pets.[2] Lead poisoning in a pet dog may indicate that children in the same household are at increased risk for elevated lead levels.[4]
Your opinion has no basis in fact, science, nor logic. "Tradition" is no reason to allow an incredibly poisonous substance to be used for the cheap thrill of killing. Even if it is killing for food. Because that food could end up being fed to members of your own family. And even they don't deserve that. How many people have to be harmed before idiotic people like you don't get to harm the rest of us because you want to save a nickel? Do you understand the whole idea and back story to the "canary in a coal mine"? What don't you understand?
