I suppose everyone now and again takes a shot at lawyers. Here’s one of my favorites:

Client: “I hear your hourly rate is really expensive. If I give you $600 could you answer two questions for me?”
Lawyer: “Yes. Now what’s the second question?”

But the NRA might find their latest magazine cover messaging on lawyers could backfire:

I am pretty sure their imagery actually suggests that if you kiss a frog with a briefcase you will get a handsome environmentalist — a hunter who intends to shoot only cleanly and accurately.

Lead is for followers, I use copper

The controversy is actually related to poisoning from lead bullets. Copper is argued to be a more sensible choice for hunters because lead shot or bullets cause serious damage or death to non-target animals, the hunters and their families.

Studies show that huge numbers of water-fowl are unnecessarily poisoned by lead shot.

Based on the survey’s findings, the ban on lead shot reduced lead poisoning deaths of Mississippi Flyway mallards by 64 percent, while overall ingestion of toxic pellets declined by 78 percent over previous levels.

The report concludes that by significantly reducing lead shot ingestion in waterfowl, the ban prevented the lead poisoning deaths of approximately 1.4 million ducks in the 1997 fall flight of 90 million ducks. In addition, the researchers state that approximately 462,000 to 615,000 acres of breeding habitat would have been required to produce the same number of birds that potentially were saved by nontoxic shot regulations that year.

There is also the secondary poison effect. Hunts for prairie dogs will poison raptors (e.g. eagles) that feed on the shot animals filled with lead fragments. This, of course, begs the question of why anyone who reads the latest ecology evidence would hunt prairie dogs since they prevent soil erosion and support larger game, but I digress. Even the US military is migrating away from lead on their firing ranges because of poison concerns.

The quickest route to innovation often comes from regulation — the latest bullet technology now surpasses lead performance.

During testing, the M855A1 performed better than current 7.62mm ball ammunition against certain types of targets, blurring the performance differences that previously separated the two rounds.

The projectile incorporates these improvements without adding weight or requiring additional training.

According to Lt. Col. Jeffrey K. Woods, the program’s product manager, the projectile is “the best general purpose 5.56mm round ever produced.”

The only scientist I could find who supports lead ammunition sits on the board of the NRA. That reminds me of how the inventor of leaded gasoline tried to prove in 1925 that the string of deaths obviously from lead were not his fault — he washed himself with leaded gasoline, and promptly fell seriously ill from lead poisoning. Unfortunately it took another 50 years, and the huge costs in clean-up and health-care (US$43.4 billion a year), before America finally fixed combustion design properly…by regulating lead. The same goes for paint.

Each dollar invested in lead paint hazard control results in a return of $17–$221 or a net savings of $181–269 billion.

Although the properties of copper means bullets behave differently on impact the point is that non-toxic metals are equally effective at killing targets without potentially damaging more than what is intended.

If you like the outdoors and you have a choice, why handle and throw a poison around? There is no good reason, not even cost.

The use of lead bullets is so hard to support it actually makes that frog (or even a toad) look a lot more attractive than it should.