NRA Launches Pro-Lead Website 780
ideonexus writes "The National Rifle Association has launched a website defending the use of lead ammunition against scientists and environmental organizations who argue that lead bullets are poisoning the environment and tainting game meat with a known neurotoxin. The rise and fall of lead levels from gasoline and lead-based paint are strongly correlated to the rise and fall of crime rates in communities around the world."
non sequitur (Score:4, Interesting)
The rise and fall of lead levels from gasoline and lead-based paint are strongly correlated to the rise and fall of crime rates in communities around the world.
Yes, and??
Gasoline is something you are inhaling some fumes from, and around pretty often.
Lead on bullets, much less so - most people would at most go shooting one day a week, many much less often than that. And the bullets fired are fired into a range, so contamination is very limited compared to widespread use of gas and spillage at every station.
The amusing thing is that the increase of bullets (i.e. people owning guns) has also contributed to drops in crime rates...
Re:Decontamination (Score:5, Interesting)
After having been to some rifle ranges, one question that never seems to be answered is: after several decades of hard shooting, who gets the unenviable (and expensive!) job of decontaminating what is essentially a toxic waste dump?
NRA doing what right-wingers do best? -- liability-dumping and socializing losses?
There's some controversy about that at a popular San Francisco shooting range:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/05/24/sf-faces-10-million-toxic-waste-problem-at-lake-merced-gun-club/ [cbslocal.com]
The city is trying to shut down the gun club (which would leave the city on the hook for the cleanup). The gun club (which has already switched away from lead shot) wants to stay around and pay for the cleanup themselves, though maybe not on the terms the city wants.
Other lakes in SF that did not have shooting ranges are also contaminated with lead [sfgate.com] (mainly from street runoff when lead gas was legal), so it's not clear how much contamination at the gun club's lake is due to the gun club itself and how much from other sources, but the city is apparently blaming the gun club for all of the contamination in their lake.
Re:Decontamination (Score:5, Interesting)
And while I understand not all pro-gun people are rabid GOP deniers of [insert topic they don't like], it's a pretty good correlation.
No, it's really not a good correlation. There are a lot of very vocal anti-gubmint gun owners, who make the rest of them look kind of loony. The vast majority of gun owners I know are somewhat left of center. NPR listening, democrat voting, pro-choice, not interested in NASCAR or truck pulls, do not believe Obama has a Kenyan birth certificate, are not members of the Klan, have mufflers on their motorcycles...
Most gun owners don't get into the public debate. For one, the anti-gun folks use lots of emotion and almost no logic to make their point, and there's not much reason to engage them. Secondly, the vocal part of the pro-gun folks use lots of emotion and almost no logic to make their point, and there's not much reason to engage them.
Re:The Romans found out about lead (Score:3, Interesting)
I was thinking depleted uranium. Everything they said about lead can be said about DU, except that DU has better ballistics and density.
Re:Yes, and? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually there is a demonstrated probable causal path: exposure to lead if the first 5 years of human brain development (and particularly in the first 2 years) is likely to cause faulty development of parts of the forebrain that control emotional outbursts. But hey, you keep on cleaning your gun on the kitchen table and bottle feeding your newborn after firing some bullets at the range. I'm sure you're right and there won't be any repercussions.
NRA = Nutjobs Riling Americans (Score:5, Interesting)
I can remember a time, back in the late 70s, when the NRA took out full-page ads in Field & Stream and Outdoor Life. I don't remember the exact wording, but they seemed like a reasonable organization and advocate for responsible gun ownership. These days, it seems like the NRA is just a mouthpiece for off-kilter political wack-jobs. I can scarcely glass over any of their "publications" without hearing Ted Nugent reading it in my mind.
Re:Bullets but not wheel weights?: (Score:4, Interesting)
Reminds me of the asinine scare about asbestos insulation, where the form (airborn fibers vs. solid bound masses) and exposure times (years) were completely ignored.
The scare was invalid, but the concern is valid. It, originally, wasn't about merely having asbestos sitting inertly in your walls, but about acts that would unwittingly disturb asbestos, leading to it being airborne as actual harmful particles. If you do work on, or demolish older structures, than asbestos can actually be a risk. I have a giant hunk of rock asbestos sitting on a shelf, and the odds of it ever harming anyone is pretty slim (unless I throw it at you, or such), but if I ground up a couple tons of it and exposed it to you over some time, it wouldn't be optimal. Same with lead paint, it isn't much of a risk, until it ages or until someone does work on a structure containing it.
The mercury scare still pisses me off. As a kid I loved it, I had some old mercury switches that mesmerized me, and occasionally I'd play with free mercury (I didn't swallow it, or rub it one me). My parents played with it constantly. But now its worse than ebola. In high school someone spilled a couple of grams of mercury, and it shut down half the school for a day... because mercury is scary.
Someone really needs to stand up to the power of heavy metal. Ahem...
That said, why does anyone actually care about the NRA anymore? They are about as valid as AARP, nothing more than a self-interested lobby group that really doesn't care about their members being using them to fun what their masters want to force on everyone. That isn't a screed against gun ownership, or owners, my feelings toward the NRA is irrelevant towards my stance on guns. The NRA should die, and be replaced with a better group that actually represents their members, and minimizes their actual bigger impact to only things that protect their members rights.
Re:The Romans found out about lead (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, lead is quite easily ingested from those sources. Handle a few old tire weights or fishing sinkers that are tarnished, especially if they've been kept in a container where they can rub against each other, and notice how your hands quickly turn gray from the dust. If you then handle a cigarette without washing up, it's all going straight into your bloodstream. If you handle food, some of the lead will be excreted, but about a third will remain in your body.
While no level of exposure to lead is "safe", NIOSH has a limit of 10 g/dL for regular people, 5 g/dL for children, and 30 g/dL for workers occupationally exposed to lead. In adults, symptoms of blood poisoning become evident at 40 g/dL.
40 g/dL is not a lot. The average adult has 50 dL of blood, meaning 2,000 g (two milligrams) is all it takes to reach the limit. According to wolfram alpha, that amount is the size of about three grains of sand.
According to Wikipedia, blood poisoning has been measured at levels of "109–139 g/dL in indoor shooting range instructors". I find it a bit ironic that the NRA doesn't even mention lead poisoning their own membership. Or maybe that explains a lot about the NRA.