I really thought this was an onion headline or something. Safe gun storage leads to less lead in children… haha… but no, for real for real.
That almost certainly has nothing to do with storage and instead is about frequency of shooting.
People that have one gun locked in safe that never gets open, aren’t shooting it.
Someone doing a weekly range trip is going to bring home a bunch of lead dust regardless of how they store the gun.
We really need to get away from lead in firearms
We also really need to normalize lead management. When I went shooting in scouts as a kid I learned all the responsible gun operation saftey stuff, but never even thought about the lead exposure till I was an adult
I’d never even heard of de-leading products for getting yourself cleaned up after shooting until deviant ollam on YouTube talked about them in passing in a video
(great channel by the way, it’s hard to find any folks who talk about guns online that a turbo chud)
Edit: misspelled “deviant” lol
JaredAF has really good videos on this, and he measured his lead exposure - it was scary!
Link?
Sorry I misspelled deviant lol
https://youtube.com/@deviantollam He’s mostly big in the physical security world and has a lot of crossover with hacker community stuff, but regularly talks firearms. Cool dude, hes on mastodon
If you want another cool leftwing guntuber tacticool girlfriend was rad, she doesnt do YouTube anymore but still has a whole backlog of videos and is a transfem immigrant who always had a perspective on guns I appreciated
Deviant ollam also mentions a handful of others in his super old video on preparedness (I believe its this one https://youtu.be/6ihrGNGesfI), which if you see his videos on his friend Kara (transfem hacker friend of his currently in federal prison), if I remember right thats also the video where he gives the back story needed to follow the updates on how she’s doing
Link to the specific video about de-leading?
Sorry, I think he just mentioned he thought it was cool seeing some de-leading products at Shot Show
I don’t remember the video (it probably would have been one of his “best and worst of shot show” videos) and it wasn’t really a guide or anything, so much as just him talking about his experience at the convention and more de-leading products getting visibility being something he thought was positive
While I agree with you to an extent, I bet many people who use gun safes properly are also mindful of cleaning themselves and their clothing after shooting.
At least, that’s what I do.
While I agree with you to an extent, I bet many people who use gun safes properly are also mindful of cleaning themselves and their clothing after shooting.
…
Yeah, no one ever said they didn’t. Or that any group was the same.
My point was that storage method didn’t matter.
Any correlation is likely because someone who buys a gun and only plans to touch it “when they need it” are going to likely keep it in a safe.
Regardless of how well you think you’re cleaning yourself tho, you’re being lead home from shooting. It takes a lot to actually mitigate it, and even if you think you are, you’re not.
I know, I was just pointing out that there are careful gun owners out there who also take into account cleaning lead.
And yes, I’m aware it’s not perfect, but it greatly reduces the exposure
Copper for slugs, while more expensive has a risk level close to 0 in comparison to lead. It also has excellent ballistic properties and will expand properly with designs like hollow points
Aren’t expanding bullets horrible and should be illegal?
No. They keep the projectile from over-penetrating the intended target.
Isn’t it better to have penetration without a bunch of shards?
Most traditional hollowpoints aren’t designed to break apart into shrapnel. They’re designed to expand in a controlled manner. The FBI protocol is that it should expand after passing through four layers of cloth (denim, fleece, cotton, and something else), then penetrate between 12 and 18 inches through standardized ballistics gel.
A non expanding bullet might get double that much penetration if it doesn’t start tumbling. Projectiles designed for large, dangerous game are designed for no expansion and maximum penetration. It all depends on what the goal is.
There’s a lot of youtube where people have put that kind of stuff to the test if you want to dig. There are a few results out there that are non-intuitive. For example, a regular 38 special hollow point out of a modern revolver often doesn’t get enough velocity to expand, so the cavity will fill up with cloth and over penetrate the gel even though it’s substantially less powerful than a 9mm.
It’s actually not the projectile that causes most of the lead exposure for shooters. It’s the cartridge primers, they use lead styphnate for their explosive. Copper bullets are mainly to not spread lead through the environment where it can harm wildlife, and to avoid the risk of consuming lead in shot animals.
Tungsten, too.
The problem is really the cost. To go to the range and spend $30 would instead cost $150. I think the average person would buy the lead.
I’ll ask a friend of mine who worked at a range recently to see what people are spending.
Shooting a gun probably "should* cost more money
Per friend: -$35 a person $12 for the second and ammo varies wildly. They start about $20/$30 a box for 9mm 50 rounds, but most people use 1/2 boxes ler trip"
Also, per them, tungsten is a no-no due to its armor-piercing abilities.
$20 for 50 rounds of 9mm is exceptionally high. 20-25 cents per round for target ammo is closer to reality. https://ammoseek.com/ammo/9mm-luger
It’s probably the cost buying from the range. Might also be regional. I’m going to keep replying to myself.
It is, the ranges mark up the ammo (what business doesn’t) as they sell small quantities to a captive audience who will pay. Ammoseek represents the other end of the spectrum, ppl buying wholesale in larger quantities. Not represented are the hand loaders, typically sports-oriented going through a thousand a week in practice buying components at cost.
That is fair, you can expect to pay double for the convenience of buying on site at a staffed range.
As a company man, he says it “might be a little cheaper elsewhere,” but they are the lowest price around for admission.
Is tungsten a no-no to carry around loaded, or is it simply unavailable?
I’m not a gun guy, but I’ve never heard of tungsten being used in bullets, and AFAIK it would severly damage the barrel, right?
I don’t know about tungsten bullets, but I have heard of tungsten shot.
You could probably jacket a tungsten bullet in a softer metal like copper to mitigate the damage to the barrel, but I feel like that’s also gonna run up against armor piercing regulations
I think, from a report I did in middle school, that you have just described how armor piercing bullets function.
Sounds expensive
Why not just get rid of firearms completely?
Well one would take a single federal law to change. Simple majority and signed by the president. The other requires 2/3rds of congress to agree or 2/3rds of states to agree. Nearly impossible
Yeah, this is America (Woo, ayy)
Guns in my area (Word, my area)
I got the strap (Ayy, ayy)
I gotta carry 'em
I’m surprised that song didn’t anger gun owners.
In a country with more guns than people, that’s like saying you’re surprised people with a driver’s license don’t all drive F350 super duty’s…
Even worse, because when push comes to literal shove, the people with the most guns make the decisions. January 6th should have proved that if nothing else did, if they had showed up with guns they’d have accomplished their goals easily.
Don’t take it for granted that America will never need another revolution, or that a couple thousand armed people can’t accomplish anything.
Fuck man, now more than ever it’s the responsibility of every good American to own and be proficient with a rifle.
Take a fucking look around, you think trump is handing the White House to anyone in 2.5 years?
Buy a fucking rifle while you can if you haven’t already, or at least stop shit talking people who take logical precautions with our current reality.
I have been getting the lgbt+ people in my area acquainted with firearms, and while some of them aren’t mentally in a place where they can join us, they will be protected if needed.
Already this year one of my “students” has had to defend themselves in an alley while walking home. Guy made transphobic comments, waited outside and followed. Security cameras managed to catch everything but in this city if there hadn’t been cameras, she’d be tossed in a cell with a bunch of guys and then the cops would leave and hope something bad happens. It wouldn’t be the first time.
When the people surrounding you would happily chuck a stone at you or hoist the rope into the tree with the rest of the lynch mob, and cops won’t protect you, all the people trying to mock you for being prepared just look like naive children whose world view extends to the end of their HOA.
Proper gun regulations will reduce lead in children, as well.
Or, cognitive impairment from lead poisoning leads to unsafe gun storage.
They were measuring lead in infants under 36 months old.
Are you suggesting toddlers are losing their ability to safely store firearms or did you just not read the article?
Hes suggesting infants with elevated blood lead levels probably have parents with elevated levels.
It was a joke. But lead is in the environment. If toddlers are exposed to it, chances are the parents are too.
I mean, have you ever seen a baby properly store a firearm? Exactly.
E: ban all babies! Ban all babies!
TBF I’ve never seen a baby improperly store a firearm either.
The last guy didn’t live to tell the tale.
Are babies blood-thirsty murders? More at 10.
I think he is saying the parents have lead impaired thinking and thus are not good at storing the weapons?
That is 100% what he is saying. I was be facetious.
After they develop those neck muscles enough to hold their head steady they’ve got to start working on aim…
They make lead free bullets these days, I highly recommend those if you can afford the slightly higher price.
I’m tired and missed the word “lead”, so I thought you were recommending free bullets and your comment about higher price made me wonder if Americans are getting paid to get bullets otherwise.
What do the lead free bullets do to the bore? Lead is one of the more lubricious metals available.
It’s fine. Most rounds are jacketed these days anyway, and copper fouling is pretty easy to clean away. Lead is just cheap and easy mass for the same space.
Good question
I dunno about you but I’ve never thought about sticking bullets up my butt. Until now.
The bullets are lead-free, but usually the primers still contain lead which is a big, maybe the biggest, part of lead exposure with firearms, and it can be pretty hard to find ammo with lead-free primers, it also can get pricey, and by a lot of accounts they’re less reliable than lead-based primers, so that’s something to be taken into account.
Lead exposure from the ammo itself is usually pretty minimal, a lot of bullets are jacketed in copper so under normal handling you’re not really going to come in contact with much if any lead. There will probably be some fouling in the barrel, but that’s mostly contained in the barrel and unless you’re cleaning your gun on the same towel you use to wash your face thats pretty easily contained with some basic precautions like wearing gloves and such (not that all, honestly probably not most gun owners take those precautions seriously)
But when the primer detonates it’s putting out a lot of aerosolized lead compounds that kind of get all over the place because it’s basically getting sprayed around you- on your hands, on your clothes, the outside of your gun, your range bag, you’re inhaling it, etc.
So keeping your gun and shooting gear in a safe or something helps to keep that contained so it’s not getting transferred from your gun and range bag to wherever you set it down.
Yeah, my first thought was also that they had the causal relationship backwards.
in children
No there are multiple parties at play. The infants being exposed to lead are not the ones failing to store the guns correctly.
They researchers hypothesize that the children’s blood lead content is related to lead particles carried into the home on a recently fired gun and the parent’s clothing. That sounds weak as hell to me. It’s much more likely that the children and parents are both exposed when the gun is fired. More likely, in my opinion, the whole family was exposed by going to Nascar races, that until recently still used leaded gasoline, or some other environmental exposure. I would imagine that long term lead exposure could readily be associated with unsafe gun storage.
There’s our friends from Louisiana who remodeled old houses, including stripping old paint with a belt sander - their kids tested real high, for blood lead levels.
They were measuring the lead on the household floors and infant babies’ blood. I’m guessing the mothers/infants were not at the range.
The research team analyzed data from the longitudinal HOME Study, which was developed to assess the effects of environmental toxicant exposures on various health outcomes. The study, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, enrolled over 400 pregnant women from 2003 to 2006 and is following them and their babies over time.
In the HOME Study, blood lead levels were measured at ages 12, 24 and 36 months and floor dust lead levels from first measurement, at 12 months and at 24 months. Caregivers reported firearm ownership, number of firearms and storage practices during pregnancy.
The team’s analysis found that in homes where firearms were not stored or locked, there was 29% to 84% higher dust lead from first measurement through when the child was 24 months of age, and children had approximately 20% higher blood lead levels at ages 12 to 36 months.
Same research team already found that gun ownership correlates to higher household levels in 44 states.
Americans having lead poisoning from too many guns checks right the fuck out
edit: People upvoting comments that clearly didn’t read the article also checks the fuck out
But what if the government wants stupid children? I mean, the current government would not stand a chance if the population was not that stupid on average.
But what? Omit the first 4 words of that comment and it’s essentially gospel.
The bulk of the current crop of voters (approaching or in retirement) grew up in peak-lead in the air from gasoline… they’ve got a few years before they age out.
Hoover’s research has focused on how firearm-related lead can contribute to increased blood lead levels in children in the United States. Firearms use lead-based ammunition and primers, he explained, so discharging a firearm releases lead particles that can be inhaled or inadvertently transported into the home on contaminated clothing or gear.
If this also.works for adults,not would explain a lot of the insanely behaviors of gun nut magas
