In the comments to this post; a friend of mine asked where my faith was in the “Holy Free Market” – based on my point that right now there is no lead-free alternative for .22 LR ammo.
Now, I could just dismiss that comment as I often do; but I wanted to address it specifically because of the economic impact that a lead ammo ban would have on the hunting and shooting industry. Now, I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but IIRC, Remington ammo sells more .22LR ammo than all their other lines of ammunition combined. If lead free bans pass in more than just Washington and California, that is going to seriously hurt industry. That’s why I don’t believe that the “Holy Free Market” is going to solve this problem – because if there was a demand for .22 LR lead free ammo, the market would have created it already.
All the federal government is doing in this situation is creating a false demand for a product that no one wants, specifically because making lead free ammo isn’t cheap; I can’t imagine how much it would cost to make an all copper .22 round. Ultimately, that’s why I’m opposed to lead ammo bans – I believe that if there is significant call for it; the market will produce more and more lead free ammo, in fact we’re already seeing the beginning of that trend anyway.
Perhaps if there were actually a problem with lead ammo the free market would be swimming with good alternatives. As such it’s just an obvious ploy to fuck over local gun owners.
Pretty much my thought exactly.
Logically, the next most common and cheapest material would be steel, but Congress already banned that from most bullets, despite mandating steel shot for hunting waterfowl.
(And I don’t even know if steel bullets can be made to expand. It may depend on the alloy…)
It’s like there was a memo distributed to all the gun-grabbers that said:
“Forget about banning guns; it’s too difficult. HOWEVER, what we can do try all sorts of way of making ammo so expensive that they won’t be able to afford to use their guns!”
It’s already happening here in California with our lead-ammo ban – and the Free Market seems susceptible to it – despite the Fact that outright lies and scientific misrepresentation by anti-Hunting ecoweenies clad in the “Green Armor of the Media” has a distorting effect.
The Anti-Hunting Ecoweenies have figured out how to sustain a logical Black Hole, and the media is acting as their collider.
Switch to DU.
“No! Please! Go back to lead!”
Looks like it’s time to step up the .22LR buying plan.
Even with the recent price increase to ~ $14/550 rounds, I can still stockpile quite a few rounds in a short time. Heck, 2 boxes a week ($28) X 4 weeks = 4,400 rounds for $112. That’s over 50K rounds in a year, at a cost of only $1300…
What’s going to fuck us over hard is when they really start pushing for all range backstops to be lead-free. Because, you know, you can stockpile all the ammo you want, it won’t mean a damn thing if you don’t have anywhere to shoot it…
Now if this “law/ruling” passes, does that mean i will no longer be allowed to cast my own, or that i would not be allowed to shoot my already cast bullets, what about my ammo that is already loaded with cast?
I was hopeing to move back to WA from Germany in a few years, but i will not if it means no more shooting.