California, the Anti-Gun Capital of the World, Bans Lead Ammo

Remington Lead Free Ammo

In this article, California states that it will ban lead ammunition for hunting purposes by July, 2019. This law was signed by Governor Jerry Brown, in an attempt to "continue the conservation heritage of California." The Californian government believes that by banning lead ammunition, thousands of animals will be saved from the harmful effects of lead and that hunters and their families will no longer be affected by the lead as well. However, I personally have eaten many animals taken with lead ammunition, as both my father and I hunt, and I have never experienced any form of lead poisoning or harmful effects from the lead itself. While lead can be dangerous when digested, that is usually when lead is digested directly. Lead's most dangerous form is when it is in a vapor form and inhaled. That is why indoor ranges are very particular about their ventilation. One common complaint among Californians is that .22 caliber rifles and handguns were only made in lead, but because of this new ridiculous law, Hornady, Federal/CCI, and Winchester have stepped up to the plate and created new lead-free ammunition for .22 rimfire firearms. The major concern with these new bullets is price. Anytime a major change is made to production, a price change is also made, usually bringing the price up. Also, conservationists are calling for the ban due to a decline of rare condor bird in the Grand Canyon area, that they blame lead ammunition for. Also, these conservationists are claiming that the condors need chelation treatment to remove the lead from their blood. The thing is, some lead bird shot from a shot gun or a lead bullet from a rifle would not cause that much lead poisoning, so something else is causing lead to fill the condors' blood stream, but that is just my two cents. Even the military has jumped on this "environmental" bullet bandwagon. By switching out to what they call "green" ammo, they plan to change the 7.62x51mm or .308 caliber bullet used in most long range precision rifles and the 5.56x45mm or .223 caliber bullet used in most infantry firearms of the modern battlefield by 2018. One man, named Jim Yardley, who was a financial controller, figured out that it would cost around $18,431,000 to replace the lead ammunition with copper. Almost $20 million to "save the environment." I personally find all of the "environmentalist nonsense" to be just a massive excuse to make it harder on people who just want to enjoy the sport of hunting, but that's just my opinion.