Okay folks,,,,, no more discussion of lead ammo bans in the hunting or regional,,,, or any other part of the forum not open to paying members.
A "ban," in place by law, requires a bill be passed, as such it is political by its very existence, a bill proposed or passed is political.
I did not say we could not discuss lead ammo bans in the regular areas of the forum. I said, don't bring in the politics behind the law.
From one of my earlier posts, "As long as we discuss the issues and not the politics behind it we won't have a problem. "
Speaking of discussing the issue, the people who write these laws do not have the slightest idea of what traditional muzzleloading guns shoot. Because of this, it seems to me that if some of the muzzleloaders who shoot roundball would get ahold of the people who write the law and explain to them that only lead can be used in the traditional muzzleloading rifles which have barrels designed for shooting patched lead balls.
Explain that modern bullets that modern muzzleloaders use don't work with the deep rifling grooves in the barrel that traditional muzzleloading rifles have.
Explain how the number of hunters that shoot patched lead balls is small and the contribution of lead pollution in the State would be too small to measure.
Go on to explain that the people who are shooting modern shallow groove In-Line muzzleloaders cannot use patched lead balls in their guns because those guns barrels cannot shoot patched lead balls accurately. Unlike our traditional muzzleloaders, they can shoot non lead bullets without a problem.
Then, propose that an exception be written into the law that specifically permits the use of patched lead balls for shooting and hunting.
If this was done, the traditional rifles and modern reproductions of them that have been in use in the State of Maine for over 350 years could carry on the tradition of hunting in the State without a problem.
If such a exception permitting patched lead balls was in the law, the proposed law would not have any effect on those of us who shoot patched lead balls and it would remove all of the worrisome problems the proposed law has in it.
If any of our members who live in Maine are reading this, try to find out how to get ahold of the people who wrote this proposed law. Forget about their politics (no matter how hard that is to do). Forget that they are probably wanting to ban all hunting.
Talk nicely with them. Tell them about our issues with the proposed law and how they can fix the potential problems it will cause. In other words, give them a quick course on what it takes to shoot a traditional muzzleloading rifle. Some of them will find the subject very interesting.
If you do this, you might be surprised to find several of them that will listen to you and be willing to revise the proposed law into something we can live with.