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The EPA is banning bullets!

Alareth

Philosopher
Alareth
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
7,682
Location
Jacksonville, FL
The last primary lead smelting plant in the US is shutting down because the owners don't want to spend the money required to make it compliant with the Clean Air Act. (A primary smelter converts raw ore into pure ingots)

The EPA started demanding the the factory install new pollution control equipment in 2008 after new standards for lead pollution were put into effect.

This shutdown is not sudden, the decision was made 3 years ago.

Allen West sees the truth behind it all though. Obama is using the EPA to do backdoor gun control by taking away the lead we need to make bullets.

http://allenbwest.com/2013/12/backdoor-gun-control-lead-means-bullets/

What this all means is that after December 2013, any ammunition that will be available to US citizens will have to be imported, which will surely increase the price and possibly come under government control. It seems this is fully in concert with the US Military and Homeland Defense recent purchase of large quantities of ammunition.
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You see, if we import all our bullets then the government can control all the ammunition.
 
What is stopping the ammo-factories from importing lead?
 
marplots said:
Recycle.
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I'm in the forklift industry, scrap lead prices are through the roof (100% electric vehicle batteries weigh several thousand pounds @ 30 to 40 cents a pound scrap value. And that's for dirty lead!). People want to buy used batteries all the time. They're almost non-existent since almost all old ones come right out of the truck and go straight to the recyclers.
 
Alareth said:
The last primary lead smelting plant in the US is shutting down because the owners don't want to spend the money required to make it compliant with the Clean Air Act. (A primary smelter converts raw ore into pure ingots)
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Well... it's noteworthy that this says something completely different than your title. The EPA isn't banning bullets by any stretch of the imagination that makes any sense at all, if this is what you're basing your theory on.
 
marplots said:
Recycle.
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Fun fact that most of the gun fondlers and conspiracy nuts aren't aware of, and the right wing hates; rather more than 95% of the lead used to make ammunition in the USA is..........................
Recycled.

:rolleyes:
 
catsmate1 said:
Fun fact that most of the gun fondlers and conspiracy nuts aren't aware of, and the right wing hates
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Not sure why you think the highlighted bit (most people who enjoy firearms aren't concerned with where the lead for the bullets comes from; as someone who enjoys both target shooting and hunting, I object to the unnecessarily inflammatory terminology and the obvious mischaracterization of people who enjoy guns). Metal recycling has a long and well-established track record as being economically viable. There are specific properties of metals that allow them to be more or less indefinitely recycled, even alloys, and once it's in the raw form it's easier to re-use than to smelt new ore. It's energy-efficient and cost-effective. Other types of recycling aren't as effective; it doesn't save energy, or the energy cost is negligible, the material at the end isn't worth as much as the material going in was, it can release hazardous materials, etc. I grew up in a rural area, full of hunters, shooters, and Republicans, and I've yet to hear a single one of them complain about a scrap yard. Most kids where I grew up collected cans from the family to make money so they could run around.

In reality, rednecks are the most avid recyclers I've ever met. They re-use EVERYTHING, often in very creative and surprising ways. Even a rusty nail can be recycled--Grandpa used to put them in the soil around his fruit trees, to increase the iron content of the soil. What they object to is recycling that doesn't make sense.

As for the smelter, lead is pretty important. http://geology.com/usgs/lead/ There's a fun website that gives a brief overview of what lead is used for. Batteries, radiation shielding (not just reactors--think broken bones as well!), etc. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_uses_of_lead Here are a few more. Not having the capacity to smelt lead could be a pretty serious issue for us.

As for recycling lead and copper from ranges, I'm all for it. I've done remediation on a few ranges; the heavy metals levels are, predictably, sky-high. The issue is, "ore" is an economic term. Once lead prices get to the point where it's worth mining those areas, we probably will. I'd recommend starting with old garbage dumps, though. We were a bit reckless with our waste disposal until fairly recently, and good money could probably be made turning old dumps into open-pit mines. And as a bonus, you're technilcally doing remediation--and the stuff you can't use (hazmat and the like) can go back in the hole, which is (er...should have been) designed to contain it!
 
How will rock radio stations be able to identify records that are moving up The Chart if they can't use "with a bullet" because there are no bullets available? :confused:
 
Dinwar said:
Not sure why you think the highlighted bit (most people who enjoy firearms aren't concerned with where the lead for the bullets comes from; as someone who enjoys both target shooting and hunting, I object to the unnecessarily inflammatory terminology and the obvious mischaracterization of people who enjoy guns).
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I didn't get that sense in the least from his comment. AFAICT, he was referring to those fringe elements who would take a completely innocuous news report about a lead recycling plant no longer polluting the neighborhood and try and twist it into an "Obama is coming for your guns" story. Normal people like you wouldn't fall for this sort of manipulation but then again, you aren't their target audience.
 
Aridas said:
Well... it's noteworthy that this says something completely different than your title. The EPA isn't banning bullets by any stretch of the imagination that makes any sense at all, if this is what you're basing your theory on.
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It's not his theory. He presents the facts that this is a pollution control issue and then points out a right wing fringe type is trying to spin it as an attack on gun ownership.
 
There is a problem with making sure lead isn't contaminating soil, water and air?
If such measures make bullets a tad more expensive, so be it. Should have been in place decades ago, might have saved a few lives.
Import bullets and price goes up? Too frigin bad! Are foreign bullets more expensive partially due to more environmental regulations in their countries of origin? Perhaps cheaper bullets are available from third world countries where nonsense such as protecting air, soil and water is not an issue, places where ten year olds with lead poisoning isn't bad because there's more where they came from.
 
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jaydeehess said:
There is a problem with making sure lead isn't contaminating soil, water and air?
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There is apparently if the fringe nuts can make it into a conspiracy.

Obama could close a fluoride plant and they'd find something to complain over.
 
jaydeehess said:
There is a problem with making sure lead isn't contaminating soil, water and air?
If such measures make bullets a tad more expensive, so be it. Should have been in place decades ago, might have saved a few lives.
Import bullets and price goes up? Too frigin bad! Are foreign bullets more expensive partially due to more environmental regulations in their countries of origin? Perhaps cheaper bullets are available from third world countries where nonsense such as protecting air, soil and water is not an issue, places where ten year olds with lead poisoning isn't bad because there's more where they came from.
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I know of the military shutting down gun ranges due to Lead contamination. Here is a paper someone wrote on the subject for ranges, there are more: http://www.princeton.edu/~rmizzo/firingrange.htm
 
jaydeehess said:
There is a problem with making sure lead isn't contaminating soil, water and air?
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Numerous problems, actually. First and foremost, you sort of have to make sure that the plant in question is the one generating the contamination. This sounds like something no one would screw up, but in my experience such issues are not unheard of. I've worked with the EPA on a job where one EPA person was convinced--based on nothing (no joke, the guy had NO data to support his assertions)--that one particular plant was generating the majority of the contamination in an area (with no fewer than ten similar plants within five miles). This forced the company to spend a few million dollars fighting the allegations, including numerous soil surveys, groundwater surveys, etc. All because someone in the EPA was having a power trip.

It's assumed that the EPA is the good guys here, by everyone. I've seen enough of them to know that that assumption isn't warranted, however. It's all well and good to say that we're trying to protect the air, water, and soil--but you sort of need to make sure that you actually ARE protecting them, and in my experience the EPA is as political and influenced by graft, pull, greed, and personal vendettas as any other organization.

Import bullets and price goes up? Too frigin bad!
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There are actually a lot of problems with importing bullets. For example, the country we import them from could decide not to sell us any. We are involved in numerous international conflicts right now, including what amounts to a full-scale war witih drug cartells along our southern boarder (there are places my company refuses to work because it's not safe--and to put this in perspective, my company does remediation jobs in Iraq, and has for the past 10 years). Having a domestic source of bullets is rather critical to such activities.

And remember, it's not just nutjobs that need bullets. There are areas of the USA where it's dangerous to go outside without a firearm. Parts of Alaska haven't gotten the memo that humans are the top of the food chain, for example. I know of parts of Ohio that have problems with coydogs, and farmers don't feel safe after sundown (when the coydogs hunt) without a weapon of some kind. Making bullets more expensive puts these people's lives at risk.

And there's the fact that lead isn't just used in bullets. It's used in all sorts of things, including betteries. Having a supply of lead is kind of a big deal.
 
Dinwar said:
It's assumed that the EPA is the good guys here, by everyone. I've seen enough of them to know that that assumption isn't warranted, however. It's all well and good to say that we're trying to protect the air, water, and soil--but you sort of need to make sure that you actually ARE protecting them, and in my experience the EPA is as political and influenced by graft, pull, greed, and personal vendettas as any other organization.
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I've had similar problems. The EPA is a haven for Luddites and anti-business agendas, and if you get the wrong inspector you really have no easy recourse.

Having a domestic source of bullets is rather critical to such activities.
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This was the problem we had in aerospace, with the controversy over whether to build tanker aircraft out of Boeing or Airbus airframes. Importing Airbus airframes means we are essentially at the whim of a European government-sponsored consortium, who can then use import policy to control American foreign policy.

Effective defense means being able to sustain your army domestically.

And there's the fact that lead isn't just used in bullets. It's used in all sorts of things...
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Yeah, that's why the "I know the real truth" claim is so bogus here. Lead has irreplaceable chemical and physical properties that make it ideal for many industrial applications, not limited to batteries.

It's akin to the petroleum-as-fuel controversy, when the vast majority of petrochemicals are not used as fuel but rather for things like plastics.
 
JayUtah said:
I've had similar problems. The EPA is a haven for Luddites and anti-business agendas, and if you get the wrong inspector you really have no easy recourse.
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Of course you do. Since you monitor your emissions (and if you are playing around with heavy metals you should be) you just throw the data at them until they go away.

This was the problem we had in aerospace, with the controversy over whether to build tanker aircraft out of Boeing or Airbus airframes. Importing Airbus airframes means we are essentially at the whim of a European government-sponsored consortium, who can then use import policy to control American foreign policy.
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Not really. Both were modified versions of civilian airliners. Upshot is that spare parts are very availible and at a pinch it would be possible to switch suppliers which limits the amount of games that europe could reasonably play.

That was more to do with pork barrelling/job creation Vs cost and capabilities.

Effective defense means being able to sustain your army domestically.
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There are an awful lot of wars that suggest otherwise.

Yeah, that's why the "I know the real truth" claim is so bogus here. Lead has irreplaceable chemical and physical properties that make it ideal for many industrial applications, not limited to batteries.
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Eh in practice its just globalisation. There are a lot of industrial chemicals that are only made in a few countries there days. This is starting to cause problems since shipping firms are starting to ask questions about shipping some of the more interesting ones.
 
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