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So lives lost because a bullet fails to stop an assailant can be balanced against "eliminating an environmental and public-health hazard and by preventing the potential need for lead removal at firing ranges"... I had no idea the orgasms of enviro-loonies were so valuable.

Showing once again that greennuts care nothing for human lives or civilization (which thrives in a healthy economy), only about how smooth Gaia's skin looks.

Not sure why this is a bad idea. I've shot a lot of different alternative metals and other solids out of guns, in the name of "practice ammo". I've also picked up the lead off of ranges - it's not good stuff. The question would be if the green rounds provide a realistic shooting experience on the practice range. If so, why not? If not, then the idea's bad.

Not only that, but it would remove the joke "died of lead poisoning" from the shooter's repertoire!

Heh, the US military has been investigating this issue. I think the idea is to switch over to a tungsten-based or some weird nylon-based round. While I would not oppose a switch to tungsten (since I handle ammo alot, I love it when its zinc-jacketed), this is simply a way for people to make it more difficult for the ordinary gun owner to buy ammunition. Basically, its another way to subvert the 2nd Amendment.

Actually, I'm going to side with the DEC on this one. The only kind of shooting ranges where lead is a no-issue are the steep-angle steel trap types that deflect rounds and capture them in a ricochet chamber where the lead can be collected. Most shooting ranges, however, are located on the side of a hill, and the hill does the job of "collecting." I've shot a good deal of non-lead rounds in .223 Rem and .308 Win, and high-density polymers can provide the same muzzle energy, impact energy, and trajectory of lead. Interestingly enough, for some marksmanship applications the polymer rounds have a higher tolerance of repeatability in their manufacture, and suffer less variation at long ranges.

Lead can be a pain in the ass to clean up, and unlike CO2, it actually DOES have environmental concerns. I'm not talking about eating your iPhone, but at law enforcement ranges where a lot of rounds are discharged, I can see this as a way of saving money so that lead cleanup does not have to be performed. The shooting range that I belong to had to settle a civil claim with a local homeowner because of very elevated lead content. The range had been there longer than the house on the property, but we ended up using organization money to install a Culligan lead filtration system for the homeowner.

Unless you're chewing on your iPhone, lead that gets into groundwater is a much more serious matter if you live in a rural area where you rely on a well and not municipal systems for your water.

In other environmental news New Hampshire December Snowfall Sets Records, Michigan gets record New Year's Snowfall and 2007 was the coolest year since 2001.

But we're all doomed if we don't switch to hybrids and Chinese-made, mercury-poison lightbulbs.

Im thinking about painting my house GREEN - so I can go around saying I have a "Green House".

Hmm, maybe Ill dip my rifle bullets in green paint too - that way Ill have "Green Bullets".