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
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.
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.
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?
Gun owners are known for their solid stash of n95 masks for this very reason.
Laughs in P-100’s
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.
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.
Only 65 people out of 1630 people who shot in the past year reported not using lead ammunition? As someone who grew up hunting waterfowl, where using lead is illegal in the entire US, my mind is blown.
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.
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.
Huh. What do they make bullets out of in the US then? I always assumed lead by never got into firearms enough to learn
They make bullets out of pure Righteousness and The American Way (yeehaw.)
Lead poisoning would explain a lot about that country.
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.
That checks…
Explains a lot
Hygiene? Sounds like woke sissy nonsense.
Don’t worry. They’ll take the woke sissy hygiene to the gun range and shoot it.
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.
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’ve been around guns since I was maybe 7
The real WTF.
Meh. I held my first firearm when I was 3, couldn’t even pull the trigger.
Honestly, it would be easier to just ban lead based ammo then trying to enforce this
…and am happy to make you feel stupid if that’s your jam…
You obviously didn’t get a PhD in not being a douche I guess.
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?
People who say unprompted that they have a PhD as proof of their intelligence probably don’t, and most likely don’t spend much time dealing with PhDs either.
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.
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!
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.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749379726003168?dgcid=author
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/science/article/abs/pii/S0022347624000787
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/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121009361
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/science/article/abs/pii/S001393512300511X
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 thia conversation.
Literally first link is the link that is under discussion here. It has no data about lead levels, and is what I pointed out.
Second link, your own quoted bit of it says “may be”
Third link,
Models were adjusted for percent of a population employed in construction, agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, and mining, income distribution, and potential lead paint exposure, which were found to be the primary predictors of elevated pediatric blood lead levels.
And
Firearm use and ownership remains one of the least researched areas in the public health sphere. While the risks of childhood lead exposure are widely understood, including the mechanisms of firearm-related lead exposure and tracking, to date no research has extensively examined it in children and on the community level. Our findings indicate a dire need for continued research on the risks associated with firearm use, ownership, and lead exposure.
Which follows into the 4th study, that is just a repeat of the 3rd link…
Starts off with:
Lead exposure is a significant public health concern and children are at the greatest risk given their exposure to take-home lead. Firearm-related take-home lead exposure may be one of the greatest influences on elevated pediatric blood lead levels.
Again may be…why? Because it’s very difficult to correlate the two, because…as the study states:
Pediatric blood lead levels were positively correlated with licensure, poverty, and certain occupations and negatively correlated with lead in water and police or firefighter employment.
Most people who live or work in clean environments and have money usually are not firearm owners. Aka a large portion of firearm owners are not rich. So they have occupations that are more likely to be around lead exposure, and they’re more likely to live in older parts of a city or area that has more lead exposure via the soil like I pointed out.
I suggest you read your own links before you call out my reading comprehension. None of these links actively provide evidence that firearms are a major source of lead exposure…as I stated above, they should be looking at the military more than someone shooting for a whooping 30mins a month.
More research is required to substantiate this relationship on the individual-level and into prevention/mitigation.
I agree study link number 4…
You are being incredibly selective in your reading and it’s showing in your highlights. You deliberately didn’t highlight the word “licensure” for instance in one of your quotes. You are literally following the climate denier playbook here and selectively choosing words in the non-conclusion parts of studies and glossing over the data parts. I don’t know what to tell you other than have a nice day, cause I, nor the absolute mountain of evidence to the contrary of your belief, is going to convince you otherwise. Just note to anyone else that stumbles upon this thread, there are literally hundreds of studies that have shown that firearm use and lead levels have a direct correlation. Here’s an example of a review of some of those studies done by the NIH in regards to specifically firing ranges:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5379568/
Results
Thirty-six articles were reviewed that included BLLs from shooters at firing ranges. In 31 studies BLLs > 10 μg/dL were reported in some shooters, 18 studies reported BLLs > 20 μg/dL, 17 studies > 30 μg/d, and 15 studies BLLs > 40 μg/dL. The literature indicates that BLLs in shooters are associated with Pb aerosol discharge from guns and air Pb at firing ranges, number of bullets discharged, and the caliber of weapon fired.
Furthermore the conclusion is not a “may be” not matter how much anyone wishes it to be so:
Shooting at firing ranges results in the discharge of Pb dust, elevated BLLs, and exposures that are associated with a variety of adverse health outcomes. Women and children are among recreational shooters at special risk and they do not receive the same health protections as occupational users of firing ranges. Nearly all BLL measurements compiled in the reviewed studies exceed the current reference level of 5 μg/dL recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (CDC/NIOSH). Thus firing ranges, regardless of type and user classification, currently constitute a significant and unmanaged public health problem. 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.
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.
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
Ah, the Roman Empire speedrun.
Ohhhhh
It all makes sense. The irrational anger, lack of morality, and loss of common sense.
A loss would imply they had any to begin with
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.
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
It’s very common
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…)
Yep! Yeah a sink on the range itself would do more harm than good
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.
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.
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.
True but maybe stop killing shit
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.
Only if you kill the prey bare arms only.
… 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.
Lab-grown meat will likely have an odd taste
Considering we can taste the difference between corn-fed and grass-fed beef, I’d imagine they would work on figuring out the nutrient slurry that makes the meatalog taste best. They might even be able to improve the taste, texture, marbling, &c. I just don’t expect the first generation product to be great
To be fair, they could just go out there for target practice and shoot soda cans or something
Yeah I shoot a lot but I don’t hunt.
Yeah that’s my thing. And not even often anymore. Just enough to keep the skills up.
Which is usually what I’m doing. I only shoot living things if I intend to eat them and that’s pretty rare.
How can I kill shit? It’s already dead.
Maybe yours is
If your shit is alive you should probably see a doctor.
It gets really awkward when you fart and moths come out too
My shit is a doctor.
Now there’s a party trick!
Oh so THAT’S where MAGA got the brain damage.
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.
Nah they like shooting cans.
Ya know. Mexi-cans, Domini-cans, Puerto Ri-cans?
The left should stock up and get trained, at the rate it’s going.
It honestly explains so much
