airplane fuel is still leaded.
You are correct, but since some may read that and assume that all aviation fuel is leaded, I wanted to add more info.
Most people don't know that "airplane fuel" and "jet fuel" are different. Jet fuel is not leaded. The fuel used by small, piston-driven prop engines is. Because small piston aircraft still use leaded fuel, aviation is still the largest source of airborne lead emissions. The FAA is working to phase it out by 2030.
You know what's funny? One of the "quirky" things about the Fallout Universe is how everything is radioactive because all their tech is based on fission/fusion right? It's meant to be funny like haha yeah our pollution is bad but atleast we're not poisoning ourselves with everything we do. Yet if you sub out "radioactive" for "heavy metal contamination" and "microplastics" etc that's basically 100% accurate to real life america.
Iirc locations downwind or under approach/depart flight lanes of small airports deal with an exposure risk fairly above baseline. I feel like I remember reading then that it ties into modern redlining where there are more minority populations in those areas due to cost of housing and the generational impacts of lead exposure.
So it’s the Cessnas spraying us with chemicals then? I thought it was the ones with the clearly harmless contrails but dang.
huh. maybe the chemtrail people were onto something.
I've known a few that were certainly on something...
The politics and logistics issues holding back lead free avgas are extremely frustrating. I really thought we would have seen that transition by now.
Who knows, maybe it will take electric aircraft to finally put an end to the issue.
Maybe you can pull it off WW2 style by adding a couple % of aniline to unleaded gasoline
Isn't it just for some prop planes? Also there's an approved unleaded version but for slme reason it's being rolled out slowly
So is most racing fuel.
The danger from leaded fuels don't come from handling, but from the exhaust. The lead becomes breathable and enters the environment, exposing those who lived in urban areas and near roads to more lead than others.
The other poster isn't wrong about airplane fuel being leaded, but that can be misleading because most people don't know that "airplane fuel" and "jet fuel" are different. Jet fuel is not leaded, but the fuel used by small, piston-driven prop engines is.
Most people don't handle airplane fuel
I can't handle it. I get drunk immediately.
Does the lead in the exhaust come down into the air we breathe? Lead is heavy. Would probably be more in cities with airports and under flight paths. Diluted of course, but repeated every day... Perhaps a tin hat or mask would help.
It's why boomers are so fucking dumb
1996 in the US.
Effective January 1, 1996, the Clean Air Act banned the sale of the small amount of leaded fuel that was still available in some parts of the country for use in on-road vehicles.
Where were these places?
IIRC farm co-ops, rural gas stations, bulk purchases for fleets, etc…
I can remember my grandpa, a career trucker and grease monkey, grumbling about having to use lead substitute in his 60s Ford pickup when I was very young.
We had one gas station in my town in Oklahoma that sold it right up to the deadline. I used it because both my vehicles were built for it.
Cars made before the 70s need the extra lubrication in the valves or the engines wear out much quicker. Engines made for unleaded fuel usually have valve sleeves to prevent excessive wear.
I hate that Gen-X is represented here.
The Boomers grew up with EVERYTHING having lead in it, including the air thanks to leaded gasoline. Prolonged lead poisoning is almost surely a factor there.
Eh, Gen-z who are chuds do of course hold responsibility for their own actions, but they were started down the path by really hard to overcome disadvantages previous generations had where family was present to socialize them, teach them how to treat others, previous generations had third spaces to socialize with peers to learn how not to be asshats, to learn what behaviors wouldn’t be tolerated, and the silent generation, boomers, and now gen-x (my gen) ARE guilty of one by one letting or actively helping all the structures that made socialization and generationally passed down behavioral guidance possible go away or be stripped by stopping the flow of corporate gains to the lower and middle classes, forcing families to all work, and sometimes all work multiple jobs, they voted against social programs, against traditional funding that built transportation systems, parks, and other third spaces by reducing taxation on the wealthy in the name of lowering taxes and the Ayn Rand myth of extreme self reliance.
When you stop investing in society, you stop getting the benefits of a society, and the first to go is the social contract, where people treat each other with some level of respect due to acknowledgement of said social contract, for the most part.
You just described each generations qualms with what the generations before them left them.
Can’t blame boomers for the number of Gen-Z males who are absolute chuds.
But we can blame lead poisoning from poorly-soldered vape batteries
I'm not sure that's as wide of an issue compared to lead being in the gas tank. Then again I don't know if there were ever studies on fallout from such tests on USA soil.
This just proves that broader economic trends exist, but especially cause how much it detaches at the end, yet increases in step this is obviously not causation, and is really only loose correlation
The divergence makes sense.
Children age out of the sample cohort, but still have high lead levels and still contribute to the crime cohort.
I'd expect to see the lead level rate be proportional to the birth rate and the crime rate proportional to the death rate. Having the chart extend another 15 years to today might show that.
No idea on lead level, but violent crime has mostly stayed fairly level now, property crime is way down. Something to consider is that rapes are up quite a bit, starting around the time #MeToo went viral. Which IMO makes sense, as more women found the courage to speak out.
That's incorrect. It's correlation, not causation.
If lead were such a direct cause of violence, they should start diverging at the introduction of lead, not long after a notable decline in lead levels. (ok ok not diverge at first, but still have a predictable, visible connection throughout)
Children grow up constantly, and only one of the lines is not age-restricted. If it were to ever diverge while still being a major cause, it'd begin to diverge at the introduction of the stimulus... or rather, start to diverge when the supposed initiating cause was reduced.
As you say, lead is a lifetime problem. If it were to be a tent pole contributor to violence, violence wouldn't have reduced in lockstep basically ever.
Lead is a massive problem and is a toxin, but it surely did not itself contribute to increased violence. Increased stupidity? Absolutely.
Perhaps the preschoolers who were exposed to lead, who then went on to become violent 20-somethings, continued to be more violent in their 30s.
I wouldn't rule it out. They wanted a new Rome, and they're getting one - complete with Diarrhea Forever(tm)
The "Super gun owners" account for only like 3% of Americans. And a lot of those still don't shoot enough to meaningfully manifest the symptoms of lead poisoning on its own.
It's probably just medical advances letting bitter racist old fucks live longer.
And the paint, don't forget the leaded paint. And the ceramic tile. And cosmetics. And costume jewelry. And pipes/plumbing. And pottery. And older vinyl, like blinds. And almost all older strained glass uses lead to hold the panels together. And even older plastics often contained lead to soften the material, and we all know how badly old plastic often deteriorates.
There's a shit ton of lead in products made before the turn of the century.
And all that lead in gasoline they had kicking around everywhere growing up.
I have been pointing this out for like 20 years. Even with good sanitation and PPE, lead residue from shooting is surprisingly hard tocompletely eliminate. I was as shooting maybe a couple of times per week, primarily with a bolt action rifle and shotgun, wearing gloves, wiping things down, and I could still find detectable lead residue on my range bag, and in my car (!).
Someone who is putting hundreds of rounds per week of dog shit ammo through their AR is 1000% exposing themselves and their family to a slowly increasing background supply of lead.
Someone on Lemmy wrote, a little over a year ago I think, that lead ossifies in the bones and then gets released into the blood as bones soften with age. This then affects the brain and might explain why older people have seemingly sudden personality changes. I think about this often.
There's some studies that look into this and its effects on mental health of all stripes. I'm certain in the coming decades there'll be more as the boomers start suffering and dying.
Leaded gas was prominent in the US until it was phased out ~1980-90s. I've always wonder if this had a large effect on those growing up in earlier times, i.e. those in their 60-70s now, or the baby boomer generation.
Derek Muller has a lot of interesting, sad, and scary things to say about that: https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA
It’s from them licking paint.
Were your parents using guns on the regular?That is the important question here, because lead has very long lasting consequences.
(Btw, just having guns does fuck all against militarized police units)
Well there's on going studies that lead poisoning/exposure leads to mental degredation in various ways, including parkinson's/alheimer's and similar neurological diseases.
Currently there is a push for hunters to switch to all copper bullets. The bullet technology has gotten good enough that solid copper bullets can be designed in a way to consistently petal and create big wound channels. They're obviously more expensive so I stick with lead for the range and practice.
At the learn to hunt deer class I went to they reviewed a study that showed that lead bullets fragment and shed when they hit the target. The study shot a hog cadaver (iirc), and noted that when they scanned the result they found lead up to 16" away from the impact point and that it was probably even further but their scanner was limited to scanning just that size. The class then demonstrated shooting an all copper bullet at a series of water jugs in a bullet trap to show how it petals.
All that to say, this is a current topic in the hunting community and people are switching away from lead. More and more manufacturers are making copper core bullets and they're coming down in price. If you're interested Barnes is the go to manufacturer for these right now.
Edit: Also bird shot moved away from lead a long time ago. It's not even legal to use it anymore.
Edit 2: Turns out lead bird shot isn't illegal to use, it's only outright banned for water fowl hunting. https://www.fws.gov/.... You should also check your local laws, here in Wisconsin it's also banned for mourning dove hunting.
In 1991, the US Fish and Wildlife Service launched a nationwide ban on lead shot for waterfowl hunting to reduce the number of lead shot falling into waterbodies. Since the inception of dove hunting in Wisconsin in 2003, the DNR has prohibited the use of lead shot for hunting mourning doves on state-managed lands.
In my mind I just equated that with being banned all together. Who wants to study the law just to find out when they can use toxic shot?
I'm using lead free ammo since last year and I'm content with the results. Many conservative, mostly older hunters claim that the killing power is inferior. But in my experience, even with a lead-free deformable bullet, the killing power is still perfectly adequate, even for smaller game. Killing power depends largely on the point of impact, so if the animal runs a long way, it’s the hunter’s fault, not the ammunition’s.
I've always been confused by the killing power argument.
A sufficiently high velocity impact to the correct location kills regardless of the material in question typically.
So as long as the material does not cause fov to go to absolute shit or something then functionally it shouldn't matter.
Lead is very dense, so a bullet the same size delivers more force. Steel was an early alternative, and in addition to being less dense, it also tends not to deform into a mushroom shape during impact like lead and copper do. So a steel bullet can penetrate cleanly through a target leaving a narrower path and have a slower penetration and exit velocity, all combining to do less damage.
The density benefit is the same reason some high end rounds use tungsten and even depleted uranium. Heavier bullets of the same size fly straighter and hit harder.
Steel and copper also tend to cause more barrel wear than lead. Probably tungsten does too, but I don't have experience with it, let alone depleted uranium, lol.
It's still worth switching away from lead though.
The force difference would be absolutely miniscule. The energy comes from the powder, not the bullet material. Denser cores increase penetration by concentrating the force, not magically delivering more force.
Yes and no. I think the reasoning behind this often has to do with how the projectile behaves after striking the target. Generally speaking, a distinction is made between deformation-type and fragmentation-type projectiles, and, if I understand the arguments correctly, it’s assumed that lead-free projectiles don’t fragment as effectively or, in the case of deformation-type projectiles, don’t mushroom as well as lead-based ones do. I don’t know if there was any truth to that when lead-free ammunition was first developed, but today that’s definitely no longer the case, and that argument is therefore invalid.
The deformation is exactly it. That's why I'm that class I went to they demoed out. The copper bullet perfectly petaled the way it was supposed to into a star like pattern. That would leave a serious wound channel to bleed out of.
That technical level of discussion is all totally BS as far as politics is concerned. If your target can be harmed and isn't armored, almost any kind of bullet will harm them. If they're armored properly, nothing civilians get access to is going to harm them.
If you're defending from an intruder, do you think they'll be stopped faster by six bullets that fragment into five pieces each, or six bullets that fragment into three pieces each? Or maybe your (royal your: the people who seriously whine about all gun regulation) dumb ass is just splitting hairs after six shots...
Lead ammunition is harmful to predator and scavenger species.
FYI, a significant amount of lead exposure from shooting isn't really from the bullets but from the primers which contain lead compounds.
The lead in the bullet is going downrange, and is often jacketed in something like copper, you're not gonna come in contact with a whole lot of lead from handling most ammo, and there's absolutely some amount of fragmentation and fouling and such happening, but lead from the bullet isn't exactly getting sprayed all around.
But the primer absolutely does vaporize a bunch of lead compounds and you can inhale those fumes and particles settle on your clothes and such. Lead free primers are out there, but they're not very common, and a lot of people find them to be more unreliable.
Now lead exposure from the actual projectiles isn't zero, and there's no real safe level of lead exposure, so don't get complacent about that either, but in the grand scheme it's often not the biggest issue
This right here is the truth.
I tried switching to nontoxic primers but holy cow they're expensive and hard to find in the calibers I need. The industry could care if it wanted to, I just don't think it does.
I did not know that about the primers. I'll be more considerate about washing up after range time. I always made sure to wash my hands after the range and after cleaning the firearms. I never really thought about the particulates on the clothing. Thanks for the info.
Lead from the bullet does actually come out of the barrel in a particularly impressive plume of particulate matter that you then breathe in. It’s caused by friction with the barrel and cuts from the rifling, but it’s very effectively reduced by using jacketed bullets. Just FYI.
Yeah, I probably could have made that a little more clear on that, I did mention jacketed bullets help mitigate your lead exposure, and that it's not necessary 0 exposure from the projectile, but probably could have given a little more details on that
In my defense though, I don't think I've actually even seen unjacketed ammo in person since I was in boy scouts shooting the cheapest bulk .22 ammo known to man at the summer camp shooting range. I'd almost have to go out of my way to find unjacketed ammo around me these days, even most cheap bulk .22 I see is jacketed now.
It's definitely out there for some rounds though, and of course reloaders.
Closest I've seen in some time is softpoint .45-70 my friend has for his lever gun, and now that I'm thinking about that I'm curious how that stacks up against FMJ as far as lead exposure, since presumably that exposed lead soft point probably shouldn't really be engaging with the rifling or sides of the barrel.
Good discussion! Most ammo is jacketed these days, but if you ever shoot any non-jacketed ammo you’ll get lead coming out of the barrel for a long time afterwards. Even after pretty thorough cleaning.
The stuff on .22 bullets is plating, not jacketing, and doesn’t really cut down on the lead plume at all. It’s nowhere near as thick as the depth of the rifling. Shooting .22 is like huffing lead plume, with a side of dirty primer and powder smoke. It’s so good for plinking though.
"... but lead from the bullet isn't exactly getting sprayed all around."
no, just the bullets themselves get sprayed around everywhere. Regardless of what removing lead from bullets would mean for humans, it would be great for the environment either way.
You can 1000% still get lead birdshot and it is 100% legal to use in most states, with the exceptions being for a statewide ban in California, and waterfowl where it is illegal to use nationwide.
Edit: Spelling
Dang, I guess you're right. What I was thinking of is the ban on hunting water fowl with lead shot
Man I love when someone admits they were wrong and doesn't double down. I like you.
I had no idea. This is neat info.
Ohhhhh
A loss would imply they had any to begin with
I'm not surprised. People don't even wash their hands after using the rest room.
Oh so THAT'S where MAGA got the brain damage.
It honestly explains so much
This implies they actually train with their firearms instead of just cosplaying with them. There must be another source.
I strive to be better with operating and using my firearms. Most MAGAts want to put lead down range in a hurry then rub one off to killing "the left."
The amount of fantasizing about hurting people I've heard going on in gun stores is very sad.
I remember being 18, going into a gun store, and several people were having conversations about "the next civil war" and seemed to have hard ons for shooting people. That was 20+ years ago.
doesn't lead toxicity cause aggressive behavior? Seems like a pretty bad mix. Almost like you could hypothesize a correlation between our current political climate and lead exposure.
Wouldn't it be crazy if we could solve a big chunk of our political issues by just banning lead in stuff?
Since a few people in the thread seem to think lead ammunition is illegal in the US, it’s not. It’s only illegal for shooting waterfowl nationwide, and entirely banned in the state of California.
it would be weird if a historically common ammo type was illegal for a reason as silly as health, that would be like making using leaded gasoline illegal
I think the irony would be in legislating the material bullets are made of because of health concerns. The purpose of a bullet is to kill.
And not to harm the person shooting it. Lead does that.
Yeah, tbh it'd be pretty immoral if someone gets lead poisoning just because they shot up an elementary school. Big Gun really needs to be taken to court over this scandal.
If you don't see the irony in any of that, that's fine. I guess you're just not a fan of Alanis Morissette. Oh well.
The receiver, not the owner. And also it doesn't kill him but turns him dumb. But you'll also breath vaporized lead in, washing does little to prevent that.
The receiver, not the owner.
Incorrect. Most gun deaths are suicides.
Except lead ammo is ecotoxic and dangerous to the firer as well. Our national bird is having issues with lead poisoning from ammo
Just want to clarify CA bans lead for all hunting, but lead is still legal for any other purpose.
The sad part is that it's not that hard. No food or open drinks at the range, wash your hands/forearms with lead removal soap, change and toss your clothes/gloves into the washer with lead removing detergent. It's a ritual my household performs whenever we finish shooting and it means my preferred range clothes and gloves are always clean for the next visit.
Lead removal soaps and detergents are affordable and abundant. If you're exposed to heavy metals either through shooting or work then pick a few up.
Edit: also lead removal wipes! Super convenient when you're somewhere without water for washing. They come individually packaged as well.
I don't when I solder. But I do use lead removal soap and/or wear gloves. Washing my hands after soldering doesn't take much time and I figure it's better safe than sorry.
The issue with shooting is rarely bullets, like people think, it's the primers. Most primers contain heavy metals that get blasted out into the air, which means you end up with a nice microscopic coating of the stuff on your skin and clothes. Touching lead probably isn't an amazing idea but won't do much unless you're, like, chewing on it. But microscopic particles are a different story.
They're blasted out the barrel, that shit is not going back at your face in any meaningful amount. That would be the worse design ever if hot gases came back into the face of the operator. The only real danger about aerosolized lead is if you're running a suppressor and in an indoor range with shit ventilation, and those are usually shut down pretty quickly. The fire Marshal will shut that shit down in a heartbeat if the ventilation is shit (unspent gunpowder is stupid flammable).
If you think 100% of the gasses from a primer strike shoot out of the end of your barrel and don't go anywhere else then I'm not sure what to tell you because that's just not the case. Or you're shooting some very bizarre guns.
regular ass soap
I usually use antibacterial hand soap but I'm gonna have to look into ass soap. /s
Oh sorry, I just deal in the fanciest of ass soaps. You want Clean That Butt on 3rd
Well you should be washing your hands, and using lead removal soap for washing probably wouldn't be a bad idea
But with soldering, unless you're doing something really wrong, you're not really going to be spraying lead around the room, to settle on your clothes and such and your soldering iron or even a standard blowtorch torch isn't anywhere near hot enough to vaporize lead, so inhalation isn't really a risk (to say nothing about fumes from your flux or whatever else you might end up burning, good ventilation is still a very good idea) and hopefully you're not soldering on any kind of food prep surfaces.
With shooting, there's a lot more risk of airborne particles and bullet fragments and such as well as fumes from lead based chemicals in the primers, so lead kind of gets everywhere.
Not washing up after shooting seems insane to me. My range even has warnings posted about washing your hands and not eating or drinking. There's even a sink in the back!
The amount of new shooters who aren't taught about proper range safety, including lead exposure management, is pretty high. No one told me when I started, and many people act like I'm weird for caring.
Yeah I was never told. Although the first range I spent time at didn't even seem that good with safety either... I stopped going there pretty quick.
Not in the US anywhere I've ever seen
What's more most indoor ranges in the US have de-leadening soap specifically in the dispensers. Never seen a sink in the bays myself either but every sink in the building has the soap (and not sure a lead covered sink would be much help anyway, tbh, so probably best they're not in the bays..)
Shooting firearms is messy and dirty. You get all kinds of oils, fouling, lead, particulates on your upper body and hands. If there's no room at the range, I go home, clean my guns up depending on how much shooting was done, then wipe up and shower. My hands are visibly soiled after shooting a few dozen rounds.
The fuck are you shooting, that you're hands are soiled after a few dozen rounds?
I can shoot for hours and not have anything on my hands.
Sounds like you're shooting muzzle loaded pistols or some really shit ammo.
What? You'll have gpr on you with a single round. You will absolutely have something on you after hours of shooting.
Yea...but it's not going to be visibly all over you like you've been mining coal with your hands. As I pointed out. Sorry that you people are arguing against this, thinking that after a range day we firearm owners look like we've been shoveling coal into a steam locomotive.
I'm quoting you here:
I can shoot for hours and not have anything on my hands.
It's fine that what you meant was not having enough to be grimy. Nothing wrong with a little hyperbole. But that isn't what you said, or I wouldn't have bothered to leave the comment.
Secondary to that, your unfortunate choice to try and relegate people into in and out groups with "you people" is not just shitty in general, it's so far off the target in this case as to approach absurdity. Elsewhere in this thread and comment section, it's made very clear I own and practice with firearms. Your assumptions are as bad as your ability to communicate what you actually mean.
So, you know, maybe slow your roll a little, realize that your own word choices led to the wave of objections, and chill the fuck out. Or, keep being argumentative and end up with nobody willing to talk to you at all.
For real my fellow netizen, go back, ~~ ~~ put those around your original comment and add in what you really meant. Chances are high that people correcting you will dry up to nothing.
Lead and fouling come out of the chamber when a round is extracted, you're breathing that in. Fouling has lead in it that gets over the internals of a firearm and the magazine. You're touching that. Lead is essentially vaporized out of the muzzle of the weapon, you breathe that in. There's lead on the casing, other particulars of rounds. When you clean that, unless you're wearing gloves you're exposing yourself to it. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not happening.
Gun owners are known for their solid stash of n95 masks for this very reason.
Cleaning sure, and as I stated elsewhere most rounds are jacketed with copper and a lead core, the only lead you're being exposed to is from the primer, which is around 40% lead derivatives and a massive amount of that is blasted out the muzzle, you're not breathing in much more if much more than natural back ground amounts of lead that's already in the soil around us.
Cleaning the firearm? Sure, but you shouldn't be cleaning it and then grabbing a sandwich without cleaning your hands anyways.
What is it with dudes man, just wash your fucking hands. Why do we need to argue about this?
Can't speak for them, but my hands are usually pretty dirty after shooting a few mags due to reloading. Handling 7.62x39 surplus or 22lr is nasty work. Even cheaper 5.56 seems to be pretty gross. Was out just the other day and my hands were black from a box of Remington golden bullet.
22s are all kinds of nasty, and mag loaders for them tend to be awful, so I always end up with a black lead spot on my thumb from pushing the rounds into the mag after just a few minutes.
That's not lead though, that's usually brass or in your case x39 that's steel cased(love my mini30 and sks). The rounds are always jacketed in either copper or something else with a lead core. Hell even most 22lr these days is copper coated or wax coated.
My AK eats steel all day, but I tend to feed it brass. All I know is my hands is black and bullets is gross, so it gets the abrasive lead soap from my range bag when I'm done. I was more commenting on how one's hands would get dirty from a small amount of shooting than the composition of the dirt in a box of ammo. I agree, I suspect most of that is mostly inert yet gross.
Most 22lrs are not wax coated, can you stop lying already holy shit man.
You wanna know how I know you don't actually shoot?
Maybe they've got a Lethal Enforcers cabinet.
ROFL I have my own range on my farm lol
I am almost 40, I've been around guns since I was maybe 7 and I have never been warned about this before. I also have a PhD and am happy to make you feel stupid if that's your jam, but it seems like something we should be taught but aren't?
Of course we clean ourselves and our guns but I would never have said "hey hold on, I need to use an extra product before I eat my turkey sandwich". I don't prefer to smell like gunpowder, but I don't like smelling like a cow either and the cleanup was similar.
Based on your handle(name), we probably lived in similar places. I only look for pity for helping others and shouldering their pain.
Bad parenting? Ugh not really, maybe the leave me alone treatment or thrown against the wall or being whipped fun times. Aside that, it's like I had three cars in high school, an apartment, a credit card, and another apartment in another country, a 4k computer in the early 2000s.
Maybe I want a place to vent. Is that so wrong? You aggress me just because "firearms" and ignore that I've helped many people throughout my life.
What will probably piss you off is that I have 7 firearms on my bed right now, they need to be maintained and I'm lazy so I just sleep in another room.
As a counter argument, are you looking to vent your frustrations on someone else? When's the last time you asked your friends how they're doing, or what's bothering them? One day it will be too late.
Edit: down vote with no comment, classic didn't update sigh
Bad parenting is teaching your kids abstinence-only gun education. If you live in a country where half the people have guns, your kid should have a basic understanding of them. If you live in a household that has guns, your kid should have an avanced understanding of them.
If I were to guess why it's not a thing that's readily taught I would assume it's because of the rather shockingly large lead lobby that exists in the USA pushing against education and regulation against lead. There's a meaningful establishment bent on making sure we don't ask about it or learn about it.
I am not sure it's quite so sinister.
I was today years old when I read the box of ammunition to see that it says "hey wash your hands" though I would assume we are talking about something more than soap and water.
How many cleaners that your parents taught you to use have you stopped and read the ACTUAL directions for? Like of course I know how to use Windex! Oh I shouldn't use it on electronics I guess even though parents always wiped down the TV with it.
I was today years old.
Honestly, it would be easier to just ban lead based ammo then trying to enforce this
but I never would have said "hey hold on, I need to use an extra product before I eat my turkey sandwich".
It's amazing how many things we completely fail to question. Your parents said or didn't say something, showed the action or inaction was completely normal, and then you autopiloted indefinitely until something is specifically called it out. I continue to find new things wrong with my dad's statements. It's... Infuriating when I figure it out. Usually happens when I go to say it out loud as fact to someone else. That triggers the internal fact check mechanism.
This has been going on for decades.
This is exactly how it happens.
are you equating PhDs with overall intelligence?
that would be ironic
No, that would be something you would expect Alanis Morissette to put in her song "Ironic" but in reality she doesn't know how to define ironic either.
Yes I am here to tell you that those things are correlated. I have been outside where it is peopley.
oh, man
have a good one, dude. I don't want to waste more time talking with idiots
You know, I feel exactly the same way.
a funny thing happens once your education and intellectual levels reach a certain point. you just get sick of dealing with everyone's shit.
Imagine being stuck in a room full of rude 5th graders that keep telling you that you're wrong about the things you studied for half your life. now imagine you've been stuck in that room with a rotating selection of rude 5th graders for decades.
would you be nice to them?
why shouldn't they promote their state of education to relay their level of comprehension and intellect? they worked hard for it. it's not like they hand them out to everybody.
the use didn't even use it as a power move, simply said it as a way to reject idiots from challenging their statements.
that's the real shame here, but I get it. that's why when idiots often open their mouths I have zero inclination to correct them.
you can fix ugly, you can fix ignorance, but you can't fix stupid.
Dude you don't have to white knight for the douchey PhD guy. Saying shit like that, even if you are really super duper smart, is incredibly arrogant. People that say shit like, "I'm super smart and you're super dumb and I have a piece of paper to prove how super smart I am." Are gigantic douche bags. It ranks up there with, "I have a huge IQ." In levels of douche-dom. In fact, the more I think about it the more I think this is some shit that Trump would say. Just outrageously, fart smellingly, douchey.
So no I'm not gonna imagine the scenario where you somehow think I'm a 5th grader and you and PhD guy are the only super smart people on the entire internet. Not only is it a douchey thing to say, but also would make me a douche, and I really don't wanna be a douche.
Dude you don't have to white knight for the douchey PhD guy.
not white knighting. it's just personal experience.
Saying shit like that, even if you are really super duper smart, is incredibly arrogant.
you clearly have no idea how draining it can be to deal with idiots. the mental fatigue alone is depressing.
besides they didn't say you were stupid, they said they are free to make you feel stupid. you clearly are dealing with some feelings of inadequacy and felt threatened by that statement.
I'm older but I've been shooting since I was around the same age. This whole thing about lead poisoning is just dumb, most ammunition is wax covered if it's bare lead (22lr) or it's copper jacketed. The amount of lead you're handling is miniscule and everyone I shoot with and have ever shot with, we wash our hands before we eat. It's not rocket science, most people who aren't gross wash their hands before they consume food even if they're just at a desk job.
This study is junk science anyways. They literally just conducted a survey, which is just dumb for this type of study. How about go measure actually how much lead is deposited on clothing or gear, it's probably not even registrable.
If they wanted real data, they should go to the military and get data. Most people who shoot, do it once or twice a month at best (shits not cheap for most people) and most of the time they're doing it for an hour or two at most.
People living in older cities are going to be getting more exposure from leaded soil than someone going to a range once a month.
Nothing burger meant to paint gun owners as idiots.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
Okay here's the study. In the conclusion it says:
Extant literature has demonstrated that even low levels of lead contribute to significant impairments across the life course.1 Associations between firearm use and blood lead concentrations have been well documented among adults.4 For children, evidence is accumulating that firearm-related lead exposure may be a serious public health problem, as even low-level exposures result in higher levels of externalizing and depressive symptoms and an increased risk of criminality and violent injury.3,32,
Here's a couple of those studies cited:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
These data provide state-level evidence that firearms may be an important source of child lead exposure. More research is needed to substantiate this relationship and identify modifiable pathways of exposure at the individual level.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
Children in the highest quartile communities were 2.16 times more likely to have elevated BLLs when compared to their peers in the lower quartiles. A one standard deviation change in firearm licensure percentage was found to reflect a 0.96% increase in elevated pediatric blood lead levels. Regression analyses demonstrated that the inclusion of firearm licensure significantly improved the prediction of pediatric BLL.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
Firearms licensure is significantly associated with pediatric lead levels.
Gun-adjacent occupations are significantly associated with pediatric lead levels.
Firearm licensure is extremely relevant when considering elevated child blood lead levels.
So like maybe there is something and we should keep looking? These sorts of survey studies are also helpful to identify populations that may be affected in longitudinal studies. Perhaps you should just wash your hads and practice a little more safety/isolation with your shooting garb. I dunno it seems like a pretty easy and straightforward way to mitigate a potential risk of lead exposure, that at least several research scientist have identified as a risk, to you and your family.
Every one of those has a "may" in there. Sure do the research, but right now these studies have show 0 evidence that it's actually a significant problem. They literally read like "people who shoot guns are idiots". Just look at how people are responding in this thread. I'd like to see the study actually go and test clothing and how much lead is aerosolized with each common type of primer/caliber and from someone shooting more than 30mins.
"Most reported shooting monthly or less (94%) but for ≥30 minutes (91%); 32% primarily shot indoors."
Lead in soil is a much bigger issue in cities from years and years of leaded fuels/leaded paints.
What? Your reading comprehension is really, like extremely, bad. You might want to get that checked out. That or you're super desperate to confirm your biases. You should consider reading them again and trying to remove this weird obsession with thinking multiple scientist, across several universities, are conspiring to make gun owners look dumb by trying to make sure they aren't exposed to lead. Either way, given your response here I think I'm done with this conversation.
Getting more exposure from one place doesn't make getting less exposure from another not an issue worth investigating. Both things can be problems at the same time, especially when dealing with a substance for which the healthiest amount of exposure is zero. Lead anywhere is worth investigation and study.
I'm not about to give up shooting over it, but if I can easily make it safer for little effort then I see no reason not to. And I don't read anywhere in any of this that gun owners are being painted as idiots, it just seems like you're upset that people are taking a thing seriously that you don't personally take seriously.
And I agree. I would love to see data on lead on clothing at ranges and lead exposure for military recruits. That would be extremely valuable!
Hey buddy! I have that link and many more further down. Here's a review by the NIH though that might help truncate some of the legwork:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5379568/
Feel free to bring in other sources though. I couldn't find any studies that show the negative but that's a little more tricky and not something most people are trying to study. Also there are like hundreds of other studies out there than seem to show a pretty strong correlation that are a quick search away!
Yikes, those are some pretty high blood lead levels. And from what I understand that only shows recent exposure, not how much has already been internalized into your bones.
Getting more exposure from one place doesn't make getting less exposure from another not an issue worth investigating. Both things can be problems at the same time, especially when dealing with a substance for which the healthiest amount of exposure is zero. Lead anywhere is worth investigation and study.
And I haven't said anywhere to not study this further, but to do a study like this is pointless, as it's terribly done.
I'm not about to give up shooting over it, but if I can easily make it safer for little effort then I see no reason not to.
Which should be normal, as I said elsewhere, you should be washing your hands anyways after shooting. It's just good hygiene in general.
And I don't read anywhere in any of this that gun owners are being painted as idiots, it just seems like you're upset that people are taking a thing seriously that you don't personally take seriously.
You should read the rest of this thread then. It's a bunch of people suggesting it. That what these shitty studies do, re-enforce anti-2a groups biases that gun owners are idiots...this just adds to it.
And I agree. I would love to see data on lead on clothing at ranges and lead exposure for military recruits. That would be extremely valuable!
That's where the data needs to come from. It'd be perfect for a study like this. Everyone is on basically the same economic level, they usually shoot around the same amounts, they live in the same areas as well.
So you're removing a ton of stuff that this study and the others failed to account for.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the usefulness of the study, I'm afraid. I think pointing out this kind of data is exactly the type of thing that will encourage other studies to dig deeper on a topic. It seems to make it easier for other groups to perform studies after a possible link has already been established since it saves them legwork.
I doubt any NRA endorsed ranges or the military would allow independent studies of this nature to be done. But it sure would be nice.
As far as anti-gun sentiment in the comments here: that's just Lemmy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yes, before eat food, if available wash hands. If I had my hands inside a deer or something of course I'd wait until I could clean up. Taking a few shots at a squirrel or something doesn't seem the same kind of dirty.
To be fair, they probably don't make a habit of practicing any hygiene behaviors, not just bullet related
You say this, but I can tell you that there are real people that follow that line of thought. Not a lot in the grand scheme, but they can vote just like anyone else. And that type of reasoning permeates everything they do.
Personally, I just never really thought about it. Mostly what you touch is the brass case anyway. I wash my hands pretty frequently, but that's not always an option in the woods.
I recommend de-lead wipes for a range bag mainstay. Works as a moist towlette even when you aren't shooting.
Are they unscented?
The Hoppes brand ones are either unscented or so mild that I don't smell anything.
I never thought to check, bit you could probably find some that are; hunting communities would be the place to look for that, I'd think.
They touch each other, lead dust from rattling around, the gasses, etc. There's a lot.
And when you actually find out how incredibly little it takes, accumulatively, and that it stays with you basically forever... Handling lead in any capacity is bad stuff. It's very very toxic.
Imagining people breathing it and handling it and having it around your home and on your clothes. It starts to paint a picture.... A lead picture.
IIRC It's more that shooting the lead bullets vaporizes little bits of metal dust, and certain gun designs project a lot of this towards the user's face. AKA. Hot lead dust in the face.
Hunting is literally the most ethical way to consume meat.
Not only that but us fucking over the local ecology we have to step in and kill off some numbers of prey species or they will literally starve to death. It's fucked up, but we're in this mess and until we collectively are fine with wolves et al, we'll need to continue it.
Fun fact, the wolf reintroduction efforts in many places across the US have been going very well! I'm only posting this because you mentioned wolves and I think it's like one of the very few positive environmental stories I know of. We still need to hunt (mostly deer) to keep population from exceeding the habitat carrying capacity in many places. But it's super neat that there's people out there working to restore some of the collective harm on the environment that we've caused.
... That's.... I've never thought about it that way.
What about ethical for the farmer/hunter?
And what about lab-grown meat? We aren't totally there yet, but it could have big implications for the meat industry.
Prior post to this one but the ecology in some areas of the USA and North America in general are so fucked that unless we literally thin the herd they will die of starvation.
It's ethical for a farmer to protect themselves and live stock but many are gun ho about killing all predators. Given that a lot of farms tend to be remote, you have a rifle in the truck and pack a pistol to at least try to scare away the animal.
Lab-grown meat will likely have an odd taste to it but is more likely to be morally acceptable.
Only if you kill the prey bare arms only.
To be fair, they could just go out there for target practice and shoot soda cans or something
Which is usually what I'm doing. I only shoot living things if I intend to eat them and that's pretty rare.
Yeah that's my thing. And not even often anymore. Just enough to keep the skills up.
Yeah I shoot a lot but I don't hunt.
How can I kill shit? It's already dead.
If your shit is alive you should probably see a doctor.
I'm not stopping you. I might get a little sick watching you but, you do you my guy 😂
I actually pack purpose built lead wipes in my bag when I shoot, and I will refrain from eating or even touching my face until I'm properly able to wash my hands thoroughly. Clothes usually need changing from mud/sweat and there's always a shower as soon as I get home. When I'm on a long enough day that eating is desired I'll only pack food that I can eat without directly manipulating with my hands, ie peanuts I can pour out of the bag or some form of MANLY MEAT STICK IT'S TOTALLY NOT A DICK EWW that I can peel/push up out of packaging without touching.
I've even started wearing gloves when cleaning guns since that's actually where you will get the most acute lead exposure, even when it's summer time and humid in my non climate controlled garage.
Some of us care, just not that many.
Steel bullets would also absolutely destroy 99.9% of rifled barrels. Which is the vast majority of them.
Yes, notice how it is shaped far more complicated than a normal lead bullet? Now why in the world would they make it so complicated if there didn't have to be a softer metal on the outside...? 🤔
Lead is 1000% cheaper than that style of bullet. The only way changing out all bullets to (functional) steel would work is if you wanted to make it even more of a yuppie hobby in the US...
Not to mention, such styles of ammo suck at dropping soft targets...
So that's why red state MAGAs seem like they're brain damaged.
Non-hunter who enjoys shooting as a sport: it's rare that I encounter non-lead ammo.
It seems that hunting has way more restrictions but I've never been to a range where most/all of the ammo sitting around wasn't lead.
Another real annoyance is finding lead free air rifle pellets. Especially ones that aren't crap, and doubly so in any caliber other than .177. Apparently it's too much to ask to punch paper or perforate soda cans, maybe whack the occasional rat, and not be distributing lead all over the damn place.
Lead ammunition is ONLY illegal statewide in California, and nationwide for waterfowl ONLY. You can still purchase and use lead bird shot for birds other than waterfowl. I can go down to Fleet Farm and get leaded ammo right now no problem.
Unless you're hunting waterfowl, it's all most all lead. It's often jacketed, but it's still lead. Lead is cheaper, rides the rifling more effectively since it's soft, expands better on impact, and is heavier.
For performance AND price it's just better. But you have to be mindful of its environmental and health impacts.
I used to reload a lot of my shotgun ammo with reclaimed lead from the range. Every few years they'd scrape the soil in the trap and skeet area and you could buy bags of the shot. It would be a mix of like 7.5, 8, and 9 all mixed together, but it worked for skeet shooting.
Huh. What do they make bullets out of in the US then? I always assumed lead by never got into firearms enough to learn
It depends, but most ammo is at least partly lead.
Your standard ammo is likely what gets called fmj, full metal jacket. That's a bullet made of lead and wrapped in some other metal.
There is ammo that's only lead. Shotgun ammo is fairly commonly lead pellets unless it's meant for bird hunting.
There's various lead only bullets as well. I still have a few hundred rounds of wadcutter, which is a type of bullet shape, that's lead only. I never shoot it any more because, well, pure uncovered lead. That and I'm not fond of the load they have, but that's not why I stopped using it for target practice; it is why I wouldn't shoot it for anything else unless I had nothing else left though.
You can get other materials, but lead has a good weight at any given caliber that's hard to duplicate.
That being said, my carry handgun stays loaded with frangible rounds that have zero lead in them at all. I have backup ammo for it, but the five or six magazines I keep handy are all non lead except maybe one? Could be two; you have to practice with what you'll actually be shooting if you have any sense. So I tend to rotate through, but the brands I prefer have been hard to get, so I have some hollow points in a couple of magazines still.
Anyway, yeah, if you roll up to anywhere that sells ammo, chances are high that you'll have to walk out with something that has some amount of lead in it.
So is a ton of feathers. Lead is dense.
It maintains more momentum.
Throw a ping pong ball and a golf ball, see which goes farther.
Also, it's easier to throw a golf ball accurately than it is to throw a ping pong ball.
It also deforms in the barrel, allowing the grooves to impart a spin, improving accuracy
also easy to DIY lead bullets for cost and prepper types.
Kinetic energy = (mass * velocity²)/2. It's not as important as velocity, but yeah it's important. The real key is that it is soft. Meaning it will deform more readily when it impacts a target. When it deforms it spreads out, creates a larger wound channel, and more effectively dumps its energy into the object it hit target than just cleanly passing through.
That said, these days there is a big push to move to all copper bullets for hunting. They're more expensive, they don't deform quite as well, but they do consistently pedal now, they don't shed mass, and they're basically inert to our bodies. I practice with cheaper lead core bullets, but I have the more expensive copper stuff to hunt with.
Because it is very dense. A heavier bullet carries more momentum, will travel further for a given speed and be less prone to drift from wind, thus more accurate. Lead is just the cheapest densest stuff available. Bismuth is becoming the popular non-toxic alternative, but it is a fair bit more pricey than lead.
It's dense, cheap, and has a low melting point making it easy to cast.
Is anybody aware of studies quantifying direct (shooter) and indirect (household member) lead exposure? The gold standard (so to speak) is bloodstream lead levels, but I think that's hard to measure as it relates to specific events like going to the gun range.
Here's one: https://www.publichealthontario.ca/...
Lots of relevant links to other studies in the References section. A couple relevant paragraphs from the link PDF:
A health care practitioner notified a local health unit after seeing an asymptomatic 70 year old male patient with a blood lead level (BLL) of 12 μg/dL (0.61 μmol/L1). The patient reported that he shoots twice weekly at an indoor firing range operated by volunteers. Public Health Ontario (PHO) was asked to “review the patient’s BLL and provide advice on the significance of the results relative to expected background levels”. As a result of this advice, a lead exposure assessment of the firing range was initiated by the health unit.
Results from the exposure assessment found that four of the five breathing zone samples performed on shooters [task-based time-weighted average (TWA) lead concentrations ranged from 3–147 μg/m3 over the sampling periods (19–47 minutes)] exceeded Ontario’s occupational exposure limit of 50 μg/m3 (8 hr TWA). This indicated the inadequacy of the existing ventilation system to reduce inhalable airborne lead generated during shooting. Wipe and vacuum samples showed the presence of lead on eight of the nine surfaces tested. Lead dust on surfaces inside a firing range can be easily transferred to hands, which can result in ingestion of lead through hand-to-mouth contact.
A good gun range should have ventilation systems that filter air from the range itself and prevent any lead particles from migrating into the non-range areas (lounge / weapons-maintenance areas, any attached ammo shop, bathrooms, etc.). The highest-risk area is where the targets sit. The amount of lead particulate at the shooting bays will vary depending on the type of ammo (copper jacketed bullets would likely generate less lead particulate, plain lead wadcutter would likely generate more), but any ammo type is going to get smashed into bits when it hits the backstop behind the target. The ventilation system needs to pull air at the targets, and pull it away from people. I'm sure many ranges have less-than-adequate ventilation systems. Shooters should still wash their face and everything south of their elbows really well after using the range, even if the range has great ventilation, because the amount of lead exposure in recreational shooting will always be non-zero.
There is non-lead ammunition, particularly bismuth. Similar density to lead but non-toxic. (Edit: also tungsten ammo, but I believe tungsten has similar toxicity issues to lead). Lead ammunition has been outright banned for waterfowl hunting in some areas, because lead pellets would inevitably wide up in the environment and leach into the wetlands. Lead is still the overall most common ammo type, because it's the cheapest material for the purpose.
Bismuth also has the added advantage of being able to cure your upset stomach,. diarrhea, indigestion/acid reflux!
You just have to dissolve the round in hot nitric acid, then separate the white (tin) crystals that form (after an hour of keeping it hot) by pouring the resulting liquid through an acid-resistant paper filter (or a fancy glass microfiber), and finally react the purified bismuth solution with salicylic acid and BAM! DIY Pepto Bismol 👍
You chemistry majors are such a pain in the ass 🤣
But they do bring the really fun drugs to parties
Most practice ammunition has a lead core wrapped in copper. There is very little contact.
I don't think I've ever seen FMJ .22 ammo. The best you can find is "copper washed" or "brass washed" which I guess is electroplated or painted or something with a metal solution that seems like it's about one molecule thick. It still gets lead marks all over everything.
Shotgun shot is also traditionally just lead, unjacketed, although nobody should be coming into contact with that much except the recipient because it all stays inside the shell. And non-lead shot is mandated for hunting in a lot of places now for obvious environmental reasons, either being steel or tungsten or bismuth or whatever.
Not unless you're oldschooling it hard enough to be using felt or cardboard wads and not a plastic shot cup as found in modern shells. Or unsaboted slugs, I suppose, which definitely contact the barrel. In the former case, you probably already have an impressive handlebar mustache and a large collection of brass shells, a keg of black powder in your basement right next to your keg of whiskey, and you're touching your shot all the time while you're handloading anyway.
Shotguns do, however, disseminate their shot all over the countryside when people hunt with them since statistically speaking only a rather small portion of the shot tends to actually hit the target.
.22s are generally electroplated. Lead tends to stick to rifling, that's why most people don't like to shoot lead.
There's often lead in the primers too 💀
You probably get more lead from your plumbing, at least in America.
Cop brain is a real thing.
I live with an individual that doesn't have the strongest immune system. While their immune system isn't great, I've opted out of going to the range for the time being. I'm sure there's a good way to make sure I don't cover them with lead; but I can't be bothered risking it for a few hours of outside time
Thank you for looking out for them 💜
this article and the research paper is bullshit. at least with my limited access to the details of the paper because of academic greed.
they didn't even show the levels of lead found in the blood of the subjects yet they call out acceptable levels in their introduction.
they also failed to accommodate for potential false positives by not including subjects that actively hunt and eat their game. that too can account for increased blood lead levels.
yes, out of caution, wash your hands after handling ammunition. or better yet, wear gloves so the oils in your skin don't degrade ammunition while in storage.
but, in no way does this study point to an increased risk of lead based illnesses.
Showing lead levels are higher in shooters didn't seem to be the point from how I read it. It stated that lead is dangerous and that around half of the people polled report not performing any kind of post-shooting hygiene.
"...post-shooting hygiene behaviors are uncommon and may represent a substantial pathway for residential lead exposure."
The implications seems to just be that poor shooting related hygiene could be a way people are getting exposed to lead. As in it might be something worth investigating.
It also builds off several other studies that have accumulated over the last 2 decades. It even says that in the conclusion of the study re-linked here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
CONCLUSIONS
Extant literature has demonstrated that even low levels of lead contribute to significant impairments across the life course.1 Associations between firearm use and blood lead concentrations have been well documented among adults.4 For children, evidence is accumulating that firearm-related lead exposure may be a serious public health problem, as even low-level exposures result in higher levels of externalizing and depressive symptoms and an increased risk of criminality and violent injury.3,32,
Here's a separate NIH survey study that concludes you should avoid eating, drinking, or smoking while shooting, and washing and changing clothes after. As well as other precautions that are more out of your control most of time: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5379568/
Prevention includes clothing changed after shooting, behavioural modifications such as banning of smoking and eating at firing ranges, improved ventilation systems and oversight of indoor ranges, and development of airflow systems at outdoor ranges. Eliminating lead dust risk at firing ranges requires primary prevention and using lead-free primers and lead-free bullets.
They aren't washing in general.
I want to disagree with you, but like one time I was working in a kitchen. I had a little sniffle so I wore a mask and was washing my hands up to the elbows every half hour. The other folk on the crew thought I was weird for wearing a mask and actually insane for washing my hands. Not for washing my hands so often, just for washing my hands.
Some people are gross
I've never thought about it but, I don't like dirty hands so I guess I'm already doing it. I don't reload so that takes that extra aspect out.
I do wear gloves moving the lead weights around for the racecar though. I still think it's dumb that that's still the go to for weights where we race.
Lol no but people will reload their spent casings. It's still expensive but less so. That's about the extent of my knowledge on it.
That checks…
Maybe I missed it, but what about environmental lead poisoning? All those slugs in the ground can’t be good
Absolutely could be a problem depending on the context/location, but doesn't seem to be within the scope of the cited study.
Forgot where I was! Thanks
Ah, the Roman Empire speedrun.
I grew up fishing using lead split shot sinkers. The common practice is biting down on them to crimp them onto the line. Lead is still the standard. I don't want to think about how much of that is in my system.
Sounds like a self-correcting problem
I always put a condom on my gun for extra protection
Whenever I shoot I always make sure to either do it while wearing gloves and/or wash my hands with a specific soap that more readily removes heavy metal dust and residue.
I wear gloves when shooting .22LR. No, I am not a MAGA nutter and I fully support gun control.
Yes, well, gun owners are a special kind of stupid.
So that’s how they got dumber.
No. Lead resembles calcium in strange ways in the brain and causes irreversible damage to everyone. While it's correct to say it's more dangerous for pregnant women, infants and children, it's highly dangerous for everyone.
Think of it like a chainsaw. Sure, a toddler throwing around an active chainsaw, big problem. But your buddy Carl throwing one around is also pretty fucking dangerous.
Can it be handled safely? Sure. But Carl is an idiot with no intention to do so and we all know that.
I don't wash my face after seeing a dog. What a barbar I am!
Lead is pretty bad. There's literally no safe exposure level for it especially if you're putting explosions next to the stuff. A lot of the sharp drop in crime in the 1990s is attributed to the phase out of leaded gasoline in the 1970s
When you shoot bits of the lead projectile get aerosolized as it rips through the barrel and caught in the expanding gas cloud of the propellant. This gets deposited on you and your clothes, especially at an indoor range. Since you can’t remove lead from your system this can build up over time.
Some evidence suggests that coriander can help remove lead in lab rats.
, its what they use in forensics likely too for gun crimes.
Lead seems pretty bad to me. It's inherently neurotoxic and gets in the brain easily enough. If you are breathing in aerosolized lead regularly it has a real potential to do harm, even if it doesn't necessarily kill you there will be negative consequences.
I disagree for two reasons. First, there's lots of ammo that's non jacketed lead. Start with .22LR, which is probably the most common ammo.
Second, I didn't think the jacketing helps that much in either hunting or indoor range contexts. In hunting, the bullet mushrooms or fragments or disintegrates, dispersing it's kinetic energy through lots of tissue; that's how it kills. Disintegration means there are lots of tiny lead bits scattered in the meat. And at the range, if the bullet hits a hard backstop, it again disintegrates into even finer pieces, making lead dust.
Gun shot residue contains lead particulate, which spreads onto your hands, arms, and face when shooting and can be ingested, for example, by handling food without cleaning your hands. Or cleaning a gun somewhere where you prepare or eat food.
Cheap .22 target loads, shotgun target loads, and even some birdshot are full of the stuff.
But, even if you don't shoot those often, lead is still in all smokeless powder and primers. Every time you fire a round of any kind, there's airborne lead being aerosolized. That's why indoor ranges are required to be ventilated and why many don't allow pregnant women in the shooting area.
Lead is "that bad". The health effects are serious and undeniable. But don't take my word for it, please educate yourself and do better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning
Even if you don't care about your own health, lead exposure isn't taken seriously enough in our hobby, and your attitude makes all us look ignorant.
@lemmy.world
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
dart board;; science bs
rule #1: be kind
go to feed...
@lemmy.world
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
dart board;; science bs
rule #1: be kind
go to feed...
Is it possible the political divide in this country is people with lead poisoning vs. those without it?
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