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

  • Dasus@lemmy.world
    81·
    3 days ago

    You’re half right, they’re are brain damaged.

    But bullets?

    I don’t know man. Seems unlikely. Leaded fuel and lead paint tho…?

    #Lead Exposure in Last Century Shrank IQ Scores of Half of Americans

    Leaded gasoline calculation to have stolen over 800 million cumulative IQ points since 1940s

    A new study calculates that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood stole a collective 824 million IQ points from more than 170 million Americans alive today, about half the population of the United States.

    https://today.duke.edu/2022/03/lead-exposure-last-century-shrunk-iq-scores-half-americans

    • hangman@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      43·
      3 days ago

      Yeah idk. The more I read the comments and check out sources I think the question has at least some merit.

      I’m taking in that cognitive impairments seem to really require cumulative exposure and the effects are delayed, but also anecdotes like this reddit post below make me think there is a nonzero number of Americans who are chronically exposed to elevated lead levels over a long period of time by frequent shooting (especially indoors) and not taking proper remedial measures.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/1h6qtis/update_on_lead_levels_from_shooting_30_days_of_no/

      • Jolteon@lemmy.zip
        3·
        2 days ago

        Note that those results come from indoor range with incredibly bad air circulation (it specified that the ventilation system pushed the smoke back into your face). Outdoor shooting, and shooting a normal firing range with good (or even not actively bad) air circulation would probably yield significantly lower results.

        • hangman@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          21·
          2 days ago

          It seems like outdoors would be somewhat better, but I’m not sure the specific premise of your comment is correct in that it seems to be much more important to use proper remediation in terms of cleanup rather than whether you shoot at a good indoor range or a bad one or even outdoors.

          See, for example, this comment thread in that same post where the person states that a three day carbine course, which presumably occurred outdoors, left him testing at 13 a week later. Subsequently the person made sure to engage in proper cleaning rituals which have prevented a recurrence of the high blood lead levels

          https://old.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/1h6qtis/update_on_lead_levels_from_shooting_30_days_of_no/m0fpnlp/