Introducing these documents isn’t going to make any difference, unless you can get some kind of objective coverage in the mainstream… and even then, it better be some pretty damning evidence or you’ll get buried under the lastest American Idol results.

Exposing the demons in the condor program is not going to turn the lead ban juggernaut around. PROVING that lead is not killing them is the only hope, and that’s a very faint one. The best thing to do now is work forward to try and control the spread beyond the condor zone.

Given that it’s a $40 million program funded by taxpayers, there is going to be some “splainin’” to do.

Respectfully,

Anthony Canales

The challenge with any substance in common use is to weigh the benefits against the dangers. Lead in gasoline was pretty clearly proven to contaminate the air we breathe, and as you can see in the MSDS, that’s probably the most dangerous method of ingestion… for humans and wildlife. The danger outweighed the benefit, and an alternative was derived.

On the other hand, one of the most common and inherently dangerous uses of lead in ammunition is NOT the bullet, but the primer. It’s used to stabilize the charge, and without it, primers would become very unreliable and potentially dangerous. Every time you fire a modern cartridge, vaporized lead fills the air around the gun. At an outdoor range, it dissipates quickly, but at an indoor range that vapor can become a real health threat without adequate ventilation. The industry and range operators are well aware of this, but at this time there’s not a widely available alternative to lead. They’ll keep using it.

The trick with lead bullets is that there obviously ARE alternative materials, but the science doesn’t currently PROVE that lead bullets are a valid risk. As Mon points out, that evidence will likely be a long time coming, if ever, because proving a causal relationship in an uncontrolled environment takes a lot of research. Initial efforts have established some plausible scenarios and have made a pretty good case, but it’s not open-and-shut.

So at this point, it’s a standing question whether the benefits of lead bullets (performance, availability, economy) outweigh the dangers. I think it’s pretty obvious that this is the primary reason for the strong outcry against the lead ban. Coupled with the distrust many hunters have of environmentalists, it’s gonna be a hard obstacle to overcome.

That said, the best approach in my view is engagement, dialogue and compromise that will advance the cause and objectives of both parties.

It is not too difficult. In one party, I met a vegan PETA-type and had to watch my back when she found out I’m a hunter. I had to patiently explain to her that hunting is a natural instinct from my hunter-gatherer past (I avoid that tired Hitlerian “helping-nature-cull-the-diseased-and-the-weak” argument). With apologies to the dog, I used the cat as an illustration and analogy that even if well fed, will find it in it’s nature to hunt. What’s the usefulness, when asked? May answer, come the time that the cat is abandoned by the owner, the cat had retained the hunting skills set to survive. I know I was successful, the night concluded with no beer or hot coffee accidentally spilled on my lap.

When all of the media hype was bent upon the complete vilification of the dog a few years back, a group of individuals (backed by a high profile rescue organization) pushed for a legal name change from A.P.B.T. to “St. Benedict’s Terrier” paying homage to the actual saint who was a frontiersman in animal welfare and in particular, canines.

It was immediately seen as a losing venture because the public still knew that it was a bull dog no matter what the legal name change would say.
The A.K.C. however, changed the American Pit Bull Terrier name to “American Staffordshire Terrier” and nearly 70 years after this has happened, some people do not see the difference between the two breeds, but most people still see them as the A.P.B.T. with a new name.

The voting public will see through this thinly veiled attempt at calling “lead” by another name!

Wow I had no idea it would be that much!

Good idea to get rid, I had to do a Lead Toxicity Awareness module a few months ago, not to that harmful (in occasional small doses) to old farts who’ve done all the brain development we’re going to do, but for kids. Shudder. I took all the lead piping out of the house where my kids live.

SBW

Don’t get me wrong. There are very definitely folks out there whose goals are nothing short of the total abolition of hunting and fishing, and there are folks who honestly believe the world will be a better place when only the government has guns. And some of those folks have definitely hitched their wagons to the lead ban issue in hopes of using whatever leverage they can get.

BUT…

There’s nothing to be served by arguing that point. It’s a given, a “d’uh” statement, as an old editor used to call it. Sorta like saying it was a “hot, August afternoon” when the very fact of it being an afternoon in August implies that it was hot. Now if it were a cold, August afternoon, then maybe the adjective is newsworthy. Everybody knows the antis are anti.

Other sources of lead have also been under general attack, but since they didn’t seem to directly impact any specific community (e.g. hunters, fishermen, hikers, etc.) there wasn’t a lot of uproar. Lead from tire weights, batteries, and some wire insulation has been the target of various environmental organizations for a long time, right along with lead gasoline additives and paint. Nobody really paid attention to this, which is why I posted this article. This is not new.

It’s not just lead ammo or fishing tackle (hell, many hunters I’ve talked to don’t even know lead fishing tackle is also under attack). There is a large body of environmental and human health organizations who believe that we must ban any man-made sources of lead that can be eaten by wildlife or humans, or absorbed into ground water or vaporized for inhalation.

It comes back to something I’ve harped on before… that Environmentalist does not mean Anti-Hunter. There are an awful lot of folks out there who are focused on trying to create a sustainable way of life, and to reduce the negative impacts of human population on the overall ecosystem. Sometimes they may go a little over the top, or they may lobby for something that conflicts with hunting interests, like limits on OHV use and lead-free ammunition. But it doesn’t always mean they’re against hunting.

And Holly, I totally agree. This whole trend toward re-branding things puzzles me, and really makes me worry about how easily the general public’s opinion can be manipulated. I would find it kind of funny, except the strength of this kind of marketing is frightening. Are people really that blind? Someone obviously thinks so, because a lot of money and effort are being spent to promote the old as the new, or the new as the “traditional”.

And I’ll add another thing here: I don’t think renaming lead “traditional ammunition” is going to help anymore than it would’ve helped to say “traditional gasoline” or “traditional paint.”

There, I said it.