What does it matter if he is or isn’t ? You put yourself out as the voice of shooting expect criticism when it’s a whisper
Lead ammunition restrictions - government announcement
- Thread starter Conor O'Gorman
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Smellydog
Well-Known Member
You didn't mention muzzleloaders or small bore shotguns. Any particular reasons?BASC will be fighting for an exemption for .243 from the live quarry shooting ban on rifle ammunition and for the lead shot ban to have a 5 year rather than 3 year transition period.
BASC response to government announcement on lead ammunition ban
Read BASC's statement in response to the Government's announcement regarding a ban on the sale and use of lead ammunition.basc.org.uk
Smellydog
Well-Known Member
Rotherham, I get dragged to Rotherham occasionally.
A box! Bloody hell, if I'm going to Doncaster it'll have to be a slab!!
A box, bloody true what they say about Yorkshire men!!!
Conor O'Gorman
Well-Known Member
The evidence kept growing and the need for change was accepted by nine organisations in February 2020 - hence the voluntary transition away from lead shot for live quarry shooting.
Rewulf
Well-Known Member
I'm a member of several shooting organisations Conor, but not any that supported the lead ban, and certainly not BASC , Which is where your interest in my business should end.
Because it was in the corporate interests of BASC to do so, and the ordinary mans shooting interests can go take a run and a jump.
Conor O'Gorman
Well-Known Member
There are meetings between various organisations including the Muzzle Loaders Association of Great Britain (MLAGB) to consider this. Are you a member of the MLAGB?
Ratcatcher
Well-Known Member
One would have thought with all these 10s of thousands of wildfoul dying of lead ingestion each year that someone somewhere would have found one with primary cause of death being lead poisoning in the wild then? Apparently not it would seem??
Smellydog
Well-Known Member
Brilliant and no.
I'm not committee material Conor just in case you hadne noticed.
Thanks.
Evidence is evidence of it’s been there for decades Cushing 5 years ago makes no sense so I’m inclined not to believe that , and also it wasn’t voluntary you volunteered others
Conor O'Gorman
Well-Known Member
Why are you being so evasive? Looks like I touched a nerve. You took it upon yourself to come on here and state "weve paid them for the privilege of getting shafted by them" yet you refuse to say which organisations you are a member of. I think its none. Prove me wrong.
Smellydog
Well-Known Member
I've always said this.
We can find birds dying from bird flue.
We can find birds under wind farms.
We can not see many birds on intensively sprayed fields and we see birds in cats gobs but we never see a demented duck or goose talking goggledy gook.
Sure, and it doesn't bother me one jot.
But I want other people (ie, the general public) to be comfortable eating shot game, and I want the shooting sports community to be perceived as being responsible custodians of the environment. And if that means making some changes in order to demonstrate our commitment then so be it.
This lead ammunition debacle is very similar to the situation we find ourselves in in the world of sheep genetics, as I can illustrate with the following example:
We have the capability to breed sheep that have a natural (genetic) resistance to internal parasites. However, very few farmers have any interest in this, because they have anthelmintic drugs that work to treat the parasites. But, over time, those drugs are becoming less effective (because the parasites develop resistance to them). The drugs are also being further restricted in their availability and use, to try to prevent resistance developing.
So, although farmers are carrying on as normal at the moment, and are not asking for genetically resistant breeding stock, in five years time they will be, because their choice of effective anthelmintics will be severely curtailed.
Which is why some of us are developing those resistant sheep NOW. In advance of when they're going to be required. Because if we leave it until then, until farmers are forced into it, it will be too late to do the job properly.
We don't have to breed these sheep. No one has told us to. We're doing it because we can see what's coming and we want to be prepared for it. And also because demand for our breeding stock is going to be high when the crunch comes.
It was easy to predict that lead ammo would, at some point, be no longer acceptable, and in the knowledge of that preparations should have been made by the industry instead of waiting until forced into it. Like us with our sheep breeding project.
Heym SR20
Well-Known Member
Defra do employ a number of people around the country whose job is to find dead birds, particularly wildfowl and take them back to labs for analysis as to why they died.
This is part of their continued surveillance for disease that could transmit to humans and domestic/ commercial fowl.
They also screen for many other causes of death.
Smellydog
Well-Known Member
What's the stats though doc?
Conor O'Gorman
Well-Known Member
You only need to join, not get involved in daily committee business. Given your interests I think now is the time to get off the fence and take action by joining the the Muzzle Loaders Association of Great Britain (MLAGB)
The Government’s initial statement last week said: “As part of the restrictions, there will be exemptions in place for the military, police, elite athletes, outdoor target shooting ranges with risk management measures in place, museum collections and other minor uses.”
There was recently a parliamentary question in the House of Commons asking about a “derogation for vintage firearms that cannot safely use alternatives to lead shot in the proposed lead shot ban”
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-04-30/49526
The 'other minor uses' reference may provide an opening to argue for exemptions for some vintage guns to be used for live quarry and target shooting and in the EU an exemption has already been written into a draft regulation to further restrict the use and sale of lead ammunition as follows:
32. By way of derogation, paragraphs 21 and 22, paragraph 24, point (a), and paragraphs 29, 30 and 31 shall not apply to the use and placing on the market of gunshot, or to the use of bullets, for muzzle-loading guns and historic firearms, including their modern replicas.
The draft regulation explanatory text says that “The Commission considers it appropriate to allow derogations from the restriction for lead ammunition fired from historic firearms (such as muzzle loaders or breechloading guns) and their modern replicas, because there is no suitable alternative ammunition that would not risk irreparably damaging them. In addition, RAC recognised that their use is limited in volume and that the impact of the derogation on overall risk reduction would therefore be low”.
It’s a wonder there’s any left.
As regards the impact of lead shot ingestion the last time I looked GWCT weren’t able to quantify the impact of lead shot on bird populations outwith a wetland environment. Perhaps if someone was able to quantify it it would put the need for a total lead ban into some sort of context.
Ratcatcher
Well-Known Member
I'm aware of that, and pretty sure if they'd ever found one it would have made the front page of the sun
Smellydog
Well-Known Member
"There is as yet little evidence of the impact of lead on other species of wildlife" (than wildfowl - which are already protected from lead shot by law)That's not true. There have been studies in the field worldwide for decades and some going back 100 years on lead shot ingestion by birds. Perhaps have a look at the GWCT website for an overview of the science as regards impact of lead shot ingestion for birds:
This is what GWCT's expert opinion is. I have directly quoted it to you before and you keep denying it.
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