I have been thinking a lot since the election about what could explain the incredibly high numbers of Americans who seem incapable of critical thinking, or really any kind of high level rational thought or analysis.
Then I stumbled on this post https://old.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/16ires5/lead_exposure_from_shooting_is_a_much_more/
Which essentially explains that “Shooting lead bullets at firing ranges results in elevated BLLs at concentrations that are associated with a variety of adverse health outcome"
I looked at the pubmed abstract in that Reddit post and also this one https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5289032/
Which states, among other things, “Workers exposed to lead often show impaired performance on neurobehavioral test involving attention, processing, speed, visuospatial abilities, working memory and motor function. It has also been suggested that lead can adversely affect general intellectual performance.”
Now, given that there are well in excess of 300 million guns in the United States, is it possible lead exposure at least partially explains how brain dead many Americans seem to be?
This is a genuine question not a troll and id love to read some evidence to the contrary if any is available
I think far more people are exposed to lead in water than from guns. Even gun-owning Americans don't go to the range that often.
That’s a good point, especially the fact the most people who own guns don’t shoot them that often, but re: lead in the water, hasn’t the issue of lead in water become less significant over time?
This post by New York City government states that actually construction work is the most common source of lead exposure for people in the city, followed by sketchy consumer products. https://a816-dohbesp.nyc.gov/IndicatorPublic/data-stories/adult-lead/#%3A%7E%3Atext=This+continued+drop+in+blood%2Cair%2C+paint+and+consumer+products.
Maybe just generally we’re not taking the adverse cognitive effects of lead exposure, whatever the source, seriously enough?
Edit: someone else in the comments made the connection between the high numbers of lead water pipes in Florida and the “Florida man” phenomenon. Maybe lead in the water is still way more significant of an issue than I thought
Lead pipes internally corrode through chemical reaction very quickly. Then the corrosion shields the water from the lead. They aren't very dangerous.
You're maybe not wrong, but I expect that even then the amount of lead and lead salts that gets in the water will be significantly higher than from non-lead pipes
Oh yeah, every lead water pipe everywhere should be replaced. I was just trying to say that the level of concern is way too high.
Also bear in mind that leaded gas was the norm til the mid 90s, so a lot of boomers and Gen X were exposed
Holy shit. I gues lemmy is a pretty young place for you to say something so completely wrong and get so many upvotes for it. Most cars have been "unleaded gasoline only" since the mid to late 70"s.
Think about it. Do you think those cars from the 1990's still on the road today have all had engine and fuel pump swaps on them to run unleaded? Heck no. Most all the cars you're going to find from the 70's, 80's, and 90's all still say "unleaded fuel only" by the gas gauge. Most gas stations in the 1980's didn't even offer leaded gasoline.
In the US, it was only banned from being sold in 1996, but it wasn’t the norm for long before that. The last model year that leaded gas was allowed for cars was 1974. Yes, all Boomers and most of Gen X would have had high exposure, but it would have been fading out by the time younger Gen Xers were born.
And yes there are some non-car applications of it that are still legal to this day, but the overall frequency of it would have dropped a ton well before the mid-90s. (Source, and actual graphs of the decline over time)
I think they are trying to phase out 100LL right now
They’re trying again. AvGas has always been more of a challenge, more resistant to change, but also a niche market segment. They were also trying twenty years ago when I did some flying, but progress has been glacial. Personally I always hoped we’d get new engines that could run on jet fuel, so avgas could just go away ( one of the things holding back general aviation is cost, and jet fuel is much cheaper). We should probably treat land near airports as contaminated, but there really aren’t many airports and the number continues to shrink