If you think removing lead from recreational shooting will do anything to thwart the antis, you are delusional.
Lead is one of the most common elements on the planet. Lead deposits exist on (almost) every continent (don't think anyone has looked on Antarctica). Often found on or close to the surface, no real mining necessary in some places. Man has been using and scattering lead for millennia, including using it for eating utensils (no longer recommended). Unless it is ingested in some quantity, or fine dust inhaled, the most likely cause of lead poisoning is eating old lead based paint chips as a child; or the more common method of getting shot (different kind of death than eating lead paint, but often referenced with "eat lead").
Currently there are several buckets weighing north of 100# apiece, a number of 100# ingots, and numerous little piles of lead scattered around waiting for me to shape them into a projectile. None of this threatens any aspect of the natural world or those of us who inhabit this planet, until it is converted into a projectile and used to put game in the freezer. I have never worried about suffering lead poisoning due to eating any of the game I've shot.
The movement to get rid of lead for both hunting and fishing (yep, going after your sinkers as well) was started by and perpetuated by those who don't want anyone to use nature's bounty for sustenance. The bunny and tree huggers will go after copper as soon as lead is banned. Did you know copper filings injected into your hide can be fatal? Faster than lead poisoning, actually. Don't ever grind on copper without good protection for your skin. Copper injected by a firearm has the same effect as when lead is used, but at a substantially higher cost. Neither is harmful to the environment.
I beg to differ. In California they have done studies that prove that lead is harmful in the American style of hunting.
They found that condors have a mass dying off right around and after deer season every year. Why is that? Leaded bullets. Hunters shoot an animal, gut it, with most of the lead fragments in the gut pile, and then the condors eat the gut piles and die.
Many birds eat rocks to help their gizzard grind up grains. I’ve personally seen that after a trap shooting range went up near where I knew a large flock of turkeys lived, within a year all the turkeys were gone. By that I don’t mean dead, but that’s most likely what happened as all of a sudden I just… stopped seeing them.
They have done studies on hunters and found significantly higher lead content in their blood than the average person. Significant enough to actually measure the average lifespan loss of a hunter compared to normal, and measure higher rates of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and lung cancer even among non smoking hunters.
They have measured the air quality when shooting and found that shooting moderate amount hard cast bullets in an enclosed space brings the lead pollution in the air high enough to be considered an OSHA violation.
Competitive shooters that shoot lead bullets have been found to have also significantly higher lead content in their blood than average, some more than triple the average despite some of them even claiming they wear gloves when reloading to prevent touching the lead as much as reasonably feasible.
You said yourself that a high enough amount of lead (and copper) in your blood can kill you. Why would you go so far to point out how dangerous it can be when it’s in your blood, and ignore the fact that it IS in your blood.
The reason copper is safer is because unlike lead, it doesn’t vaporize when shot. It doesn’t leave residue. When animals are shot with even the most rapidly expanding copper bullets, the bullet only breaks into, at most, 5 pieces. Once those pieces are taken out and weighed, the combination of the 5 have 98% weight retention, with most of the last 2% being the plastic tip. At best a lead bullet loses 20-30% of its weight, and at worst 70% or more, with X rays of dead game showing that a scientifically significant amount (by that I mean enough to measure its effects on you) is in the meat, much of it outside of the bloodshot area.
We’d still be using leaded gasoline if it wasn’t for scientists pushing to ban it for the sake of everyone’s health. The literal fall of Rome can be attributed to the rise of using lead as a sweetener in the wealthy class’s food causing insanity, paranoia, delirium, and people to get measurably dumber. Even the ancient Roman’s knew that lead was poisonous, they just didn’t care because it tasted good and was very useful.
Forgive me if I sound harsh, this topic is extremely important to me. We found alternatives for lead in literally every industry other than shooting. It’s high time we did the same. The auto industry tried to claim there is no alternative for lead in gas, but when regulation changed they rapidly made innovations and made it work.
.......49th, Tennessee will be the 50th. 
