Sunday, August 18, 2013

Alternatives to Lead Ammo

The fear is that eliminating lead bullets would amount to a ban on hunting, but that hasn't happened in the area where non-lead ammo is required. Not even close. Condors are still being poisoned because of lack of compliance with current law caused by an insufficient amount of alternative ammo on the market. Was paint or gasoline banned when lead was removed from these products? Of course not, and neither will hunting, just as waterfowl hunting in the 1990s continued despite the ban on lead shot.
At Ventana Wildlife Society, we gave out free nonlead ammunition, costing us about 5 percent of our annual revenue. The program is funded by private donors and the Monterey County Fish and Game Advisory Commission, from fines.
The society believes this is an effective approach and we encourage federal and state wildlife agencies to duplicate it on broader scales.
So, I guess our exhuberant commenters were mistaken when they said banning lead bullets would leave no alternative.
It make you wonder if those guys just make shit up and passionately push it as fact.

4 comments:

  1. If you look at what you quoted, it talks about waterfowl hunting continuing. You know how that happened? They decided to exempt steel shot for shotguns from the "armor piercing" ammunition ban, by law, in the statute.

    So, are you willing to allow us steel bullets, or at least brass ones? Or some other composition that is less toxic than lead but would, otherwise, be subject to being banned as "armor piercing"?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So then you were wrong when you said it would be a way of stopping the whole party.

      In spite of all your hysterics, most gun control folks are not looking to eliminate hunting or civilian gun ownership totally. If lead is disallowed, alternatives will be made available like they always have been.

      Delete
    2. No, Mike, I wasn't. As I pointed out in our last lead discussion, earlier this year or sometime last year the government put a stop to Barnes making a lead free bullet they had been making because it was made of brass. The entire point of the bullet was to have a lead free bullet with good penetration for hunting thick skinned big game.

      However, the ATF ruled that the bullet did not have a sporting purpose, and therefore constituted "armor piercing" ammunition.

      So, no, unless your side is willing to amend the "armor piercing" ammo ban to allow us bullets with various other compositions before or at the same time as passing a lead ban, we will fight it because we cannot trust you all.

      If you get a lead ban under the current law, we might be allowed to keep hunting with some of the alternative ammo--but only until the ATF decides to rule those munitions to not have a sporting purpose--just like we have just seen them do.

      Delete
  2. Mikeb, either you're ignorant or a liar. Which one is it? Do you not know the difference between rifle and handgun rounds as compared to shotgun shells? Are you unaware that there are laws banning "armor-piercing" rounds in handguns and limits on rifles? Are you unaware that while steel or other metals is not too expensive in shotguns, but for handgun and rifle bullets, we're talking about expensive specialty rounds? Are you unaware that the density of lead is exactly what makes it useful in handguns and rifles? Beyond that, are you unaware that lead poisoning, such as what you showed in Jamaica, comes from lead in a gaseous molecule, not solid elemental lead?

    This is why arguing against you is tedious. You call us liars for stating the facts, and you refuse to learn.

    ReplyDelete