California bans all lead ammo for all hunting

[Pete Lester]

The CA governor signed a bill into law this afternoon banning the use of lead
ammo for all hunting. I am going to guess that similar laws will eventually be put into place across the rest of the country as the years go by. It does not bode well for the future of the guns we enjoy.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_24291075/gov-jerry-brown-vetoes-rifle-ban-signs-lead

[Angel Cruz]

The socialist state of California is already lost. We have to stand strong where we still have a chance. It's all about gun control. If they can ban guns outright they just go about it a different way.

[Steve Huffman]

Strange ! I live in a small town in Ohio and have been Plumbing for 30 plus and replaced many water services to homes on city water ALOT of lines from main to curb stop is guess what LEAD ! they dont replace theirs unless it leaks. I think we need to adjust some thinking in this country !!!

[John Campbell]

I once worked for a company that refused to market or send product to CA because of the stupid laws. Now this stupid law will have the same effect on the ammunition companies. They just won't want to get involved with it anymore. Ammo sales will then fall to the small specialty companies as fewer people go hunting. That's my prediction.
Does this law include rifle ammunition?
How about "target ammunition"? Can you still shoot skeet with lead?

[Rick Losey]

I once worked for a company that refused to market or send product to CA because of the stupid laws. Now this stupid law will have the same effect on the ammunition companies. They just won't want to get involved with it anymore. Ammo sales will then fall to the small specialty companies as fewer people go hunting. That's my prediction.
Does this law include rifle ammunition?
How about "target ammunition"? Can you still shoot skeet with lead?

rifle ammo was the original primary target (no pun intended ) due to the condor

if target shooting was missed, expect that to get corrected.

[wayne goerres]

Jhon You had the right idea a wile back. Maby a move is in order.

[Robert Delk]

How will they enforce that law? My friend's family has farm land near San Francisco and I will guarantee they will be using .their .22's to hunt small game and their .410's as they have for the last 75 years. I doubt any condors or waterfowl will be ingesting any of their spent projectiles.

[wayne goerres]

They simply wont allow the sale of any lead based ammo or componants in the state. They manage to inforce their other stupid laws. I wonder if the police are exempt from this law.

[Robert Delk]

Good thing that properly stored ammo has a very long shelf life,I guess.I'm sitting on a couple of hundred pounds of linotype. Maybe I should send it to California.

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

Unfortunately the legislators, that sign these bills into law are egged on by special interest groups with deep pockets, a lot of the time these legislators don't have a clue as to the ramifications of what they are putting into law, that said, one of these days they will pass a bill that will come back to bite them in the ass. Gary

[wayne goerres]

We can only hope.

[King Brown]

I'm coming around to the lead ban. With two bald eagle nests on my property, watching two new ones every year and knowing these magnificent birds are scavengers, I'm going to have to find a non-lead solution to killing vermin.

Every year in several nearby places where I hunt from a blind, bald eagles keep a close eye on my activity while sometimes soaring fairly low or perching on snaggy dead trees. Anything that swims off before my dog gets there, or falls at distance from my decoys, is taken by eagles. That's whyI shoot non-toxic.

But what about the raccoon populations I'm trying to lower with the .22 as they try to invade my vineyard protected somewhat by an electric fence? I have been heaving them over a cliff near the shore, hoping the eagles don't find them. Or feral cats that don't last long because they take rabbits from snares? I'm going to become an angel! No lead.

[Rick Losey]

Unfortunately the legislators, that sign these bills into law are egged on by special interest groups with deep pockets, a lot of the time these legislators don't have a clue as to the ramifications of what they are putting into law, that said, one of these days they will pass a bill that will come back to bite them in the ass. Gary

the trouble with that hope Gary is that like so many states - New York and Illinois are examples as well as California - the politics are driven by large urban areas. every rural legislator can vote against a bill and it will still pass.

we in upstate NY have not had representation in the US Senate since the 1950's.

I do not see things changing

BTW - the health danger of lead in game - as a hazard to hunters - referred to by Moonbeam Brown, has been out there for years. One was published by an anti hunter whose "research" was not accepted by the scientific community.

That "study" was conducted by a Dr. William Cornatzer, a dermatologist from Bismarck, North Dakota used a high-definition CT scan and claimed to find lead in 60 % of the venison sampled (donated to food banks). unless he only sampled meat with bullet holes, that alone should give pause to a thinking person. The food bank program was temporarily halted, the "study" reviewed, and donations freely accepted again.

There was another published in the UK by a group represented by universities such as Cambridge and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Remember, in the UK game meat is sold to the public.

But it gives the left something to quote, the media something to publish and the sheep something to follow.

[todd allen]

Anyone with a fax machine and a letterhead can issue a "report" with any conclusion they choose.
In the real world, lead in hunting cartridges is a statistical zero.
We should be more concerned with why man made climate change killed off the dinosaurs.

[brian randolph]

Like many laws these people pass, they have not thought out the consequences. Kind of like Obamacare.

[John Campbell]

Lead shot poses absolutely NO danger to wildlife as an ingestible. Period. And recent research has proven it. But now, the liberal idiots have established this "danger" as holy writ, and thus unassailable. It is simply more proof that The Big Lie, told often enough, becomes truth.

[King Brown]

Kensal, provide sources recent research and save me worrying, please. I killed a couple skunks with the .22 last week and went to work on the property. When I came back to dispose of them a bald eagle lifted powerfully with a skunk in its claws. I'm one of the idiots who believe lead in the diet isn't good. I'm leery that all the anti-lead papers were written by liberals!


PS---Following Sherman Bell's injunction of finding out for myself, I googled "ingested lead and raptors." Every source, state and federal, cited mortality from ingested lead in raptors in Arizona, Virginia, California, Minnesota, Montana, France, Spain, including "death from one lead shot" in bald eagles. I'll leave to you the identity of which sources are liberal or conservative but I'm a new convert until shown evidence otherwise.

Regards, King

[Frank Allegra]

King,
Most varmints I have killed with a rifle have an entry and an "EXIT" hole. I don't really think I would worry too much about the lead contamination.

This new bill was nothing more than a ploy of the Humane Society to stop hunting in CA. It's like the mountain lion initiative that they were able to push to stop the hunting of mountain lion in CA. Now they complain about mountain lion attacks on joggers and trail bickers. From physics we should have learned that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

[todd allen]

Kensal, provide sources recent research and save me worrying, please. I killed a couple skunks with the .22 last week and went to work on the property. When I came back to dispose of them a bald eagle lifted powerfully with a skunk in its claws. I'm one of the idiots who believe lead in the diet isn't good. I'm leery that all the anti-lead papers were written by liberals!


PS---Following Sherman Bell's injunction of finding out for myself, I googled "ingested lead and raptors." Every source, state and federal, cited mortality from ingested lead in raptors in Arizona, Virginia, California, Minnesota, Montana, France, Spain, including "death from one lead shot" in bald eagles. I'll leave to you the identity of which sources are liberal or conservative but I'm a new convert until shown evidence otherwise.

Regards, King
It requires a gizzard for an animal to break down lead, in it's ingestion process. Otherwise, it just passes thru.
Eagles don't have a gizzard.

[wayne goerres]

We can only hope that the mountain lions are only eating liberals.

[King Brown]

Todd, the consensus of all of the papers and journals is the digestive juices break the lead down to enter the blood, no mention of gizzards at all.

I'm waiting for peer-reviewed papers that say otherwise. It's no service to members to say empirically there is no evidence that lead does not kill raptors.

That's a clear definition of factoid---what's said so often it becomes "fact."

Frank, I've been using .22 short mushrooms on skunks and raccoons; no exit. I'd be pleased to read from an authoritative source I have no worries about lead.

[Richard Flanders]

I have a paper at home written by an Ak fish and game biologist friend of mine that addresses this issue in detail. Ducks eat lead shot and grind it up in their gizzards and it eventually trashes their livers and kills them. It's my impression that shot ingested into a stomach is not broken down much by stomach acid before being passed out. It is however most definitely an issue when ground up in a gizzard. I'm sure I can get a link to that article from Dan and post it here at some point. I can't remember if the lead levels were elevated in the duck tissues. Have to wait until I find that article in my files.

[John Campbell]

Richard:
Let's start with "ducks eat lead." Okay. How do they find lead to eat? In the duck marsh? After some hunter fires a cartridge of 4s? After the 4s disperse over 150 yards of muck after whistling through the air? After dropping through who-knows-how-many feet of water? To the bottom of the marsh? Where NO duck seeks material for it's gizzard? (hint: lead does NOT "grind up" in a duck gizzard)

And... even if ALL that happened, does the SAME duck eat enough shot pellets to have any effect by the time they exit as duck crap?

I don't care if you're a biologist in AK or Bermuda, you have to be smoking some nasty hemp to believe any of that -- then put it into a "paper."

[Richard Flanders]

Trust me - ducks ingest lead pellets. Dan's article has all the statistics on how many pellets they found in gizzards and such, complete with pictures if I remember correctly. He went around the marsh during hunting season and got hunters to let him cut out the gizzards and livers and did extensive testing. The paper is full of pictures of diseased livers and such. I'd guess that pellets settle in the mud and they get them when they pull shoots out and somehow keep them in their gizzard because there isn't much grit to be had in a muddy marsh area. I was a complete skeptic on the issue until I read his paper on it. Dan's a straight shooter and not a greenie. He hunts himself and does good waterfowl work.

[Bruce Day]

Richard:
......
I don't care if you're a biologist in AK or Bermuda, you have to be smoking some nasty hemp to believe any of that -- then put it into a "paper."


Why the personal attacks ?

[John Campbell]

Okay. Let's pretend what you say is true. And ducks can somehow repeatedly eat oodles of heavy lead pellets along with "shoots" they normally ingest. And they live in duck marshes frequented by hunters who shoot to the degree of a trap field.

Then we have to ask ourselves these questions:

1) Of all the ducks in all the world, what percentage of them live in active shooting marshes? And does that percentage warrant a ban on lead shot over a Kansas pothole?

2) Just because a duck has a diseased liver does that mean the disease was caused by lead.

3) Would ANY of the alleged evidence hold up in court?

[John Campbell]

Why the personal attacks ?

Forgive me. It wasn't meant to be personal. Only descriptive. I just get a bit piqued over this issue. Which I will hereby withdraw from.

[Forrest Grilley]

Kensal, provide sources recent research and save me worrying, please. I killed a couple skunks with the .22 last week and went to work on the property. When I came back to dispose of them a bald eagle lifted powerfully with a skunk in its claws. I'm one of the idiots who believe lead in the diet isn't good. I'm leery that all the anti-lead papers were written by liberals!


PS---Following Sherman Bell's injunction of finding out for myself, I googled "ingested lead and raptors." Every source, state and federal, cited mortality from ingested lead in raptors in Arizona, Virginia, California, Minnesota, Montana, France, Spain, including "death from one lead shot" in bald eagles. I'll leave to you the identity of which sources are liberal or conservative but I'm a new convert until shown evidence otherwise.

Regards, King

The use of lead shot is irrelevant to the recovery of the bald eagle population. One simply has to look at the numbers put out by the U.S. fish and wildlife regarding the bald eagle population. Unfortunately, I can not link to the data page since the USFW webpage is down due to the government shutdown, but it is easy enough to check out once it is back up.

Bald eagles are thriving, and the population has been steadily increasing since the ban of DDT in 1972. In fact, if I really wanted to throw a wrench in your argument, I would point out that the RATE of increase in the bald eagle population has actually gone DOWN since the ban of lead shot for migratory waterfowl was put into place in 1991. I don't want you to believe me though, check out the numbers for yourself. Having someone tell you you are wrong does not change opinions, coming to that conclusion on your own, by doing your own research is the only way that change takes place.

The only relevant data in this entire issue is the annual population count of bald eagles. You will find the use (or ban) of lead shot is statistically irrelevant to the change in those numbers.

The bald eagle is continued to be used as a reason to ban lead shot because the activists know that is a sympathetic symbol that can sway public opinion, regardless of what the facts actually say. The use of individual, isolated cases of a raptor ingesting lead shot is used to build an argument to ban all lead shot, even though those cases are statistically irrelevant. They are used instead to make an emotional argument.


Here is the link to the U.S. fish and wildlife data, once the government is back up:

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/eagle/population/chtofprs.html

[Frank Allegra]

Here is an interesting read on what started the lead ban in CA....the California condor

http://www.huntfortruth.org/wildlife-and-species/california-condor/

[Robin Lewis]

The duck debate is an old one. This is a bit different if what was printed in the L.A. Times is accurate (big IF). It printed:
The ban on lead bullets was proposed by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) because the substance is toxic and can poison those who eat animals shot with the ammunition.

“We are thrilled that Governor Brown has made AB 711 the law of the land,” Rendon said in a statement. “There is simply no reason to continue using lead ammunition in hunting when it poses a significant risk to human health and the environment.” That bill goes into effect in July 2019.
I can see the argument on ducks but not this one on humans. I don't know the number of people that have been poisoned by eating a 30-30 lead bullet, or even some #6 shot, but I'll bet the house its negligible or zero.

I think this law is a simply a win for the anti-gun and anti-hunting groups and has nothing to do with the health of anything.:banghead:

[scott kittredge]

Kensal, provide sources recent research and save me worrying, please. I killed a couple skunks with the .22 last week and went to work on the property. When I came back to dispose of them a bald eagle lifted powerfully with a skunk in its claws. I'm one of the idiots who believe lead in the diet isn't good. I'm leery that all the anti-lead papers were written by liberals!


PS---Following Sherman Bell's injunction of finding out for myself, I googled "ingested lead and raptors." Every source, state and federal, cited mortality from ingested lead in raptors in Arizona, Virginia, California, Minnesota, Montana, France, Spain, including "death from one lead shot" in bald eagles. I'll leave to you the identity of which sources are liberal or conservative but I'm a new convert until shown evidence otherwise.

Regards, King

changed my mind on my post , so I deleted it

[King Brown]

I grew up in a Nova Scotia fishing village of fierce gunners. Most of the duck hunting was done in the harbour from rock blinds on perhaps a dozen woody points with hard bottoms. Blinds were made where birds "tended."

For generations lead shot has fallen in tons within gunshot of these blinds. It didn't disappear in the muck. It's there in skeet and trap club concentrations. Ducks were a central part of our village's subsistence living.

[Dean Romig]

A bird's gizzard is a strong muscular organ which can not grind a bird's food solely by itself. It requires the bird seeking someplace where it can find grit or gravel to fill the gizzard. This is where the lead shot comes from... not necessarily from mud but from sandy or gravelly areas in somewhat shallow water. The lead shot will not sink away as readily in these areas as it would in mud.

I believe lead shot is a far more serious concern to waterfowl than lead ingestion is for any other creature, including man.

[Brad Boyer]

Socialist state of California?? Get serious!!!