The absurd and the ridiculous

[PeterHenry]

3 minutes ago, rbrowning2 said:

ain’t going to happen, if lead is banned in law then as probably the most law abiding group of people in society we would stop using lead just as the manufactures and importers of ammunition and cartridges would also stop offering lead.

plus the shooting orgs have not got the bottle to do such a thing.

Tbh, it's not a case of not having the bottle - that's a moot point - what legal grounds would they have for doing so?

Edited November 26, 2022 by PeterHenry

[8 shot]

20 hours ago, rbrowning2 said:

What do you think the response would be if our shooting orgs turned round to the relevant bodies and said ‘we aren’t complying with a lead shot ban’ ? 

 

20 hours ago, rbrowning2 said:

ain’t going to happen, if lead is banned in law then as probably the most law abiding group of people in society we would stop using lead just as the manufactures and importers of ammunition and cartridges would also stop offering lead.

plus the shooting orgs have not got the bottle to do such a thing.

Now.... Noticed this on the BASC website 

BASC has written to the government’s Environment Audit Committee to hold the Health and Safety Executive to account for significant process failures in its recent review of lead ammunition. Dr Conor O’Gorman explains…

BASC has submitted evidence to the House of Commons Environment Audit Committee, highlighting concerns about the way in which the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has developed its lead ban proposals.

It’s bad enough that the HSE’s findings are based on hundreds of pages of inaccuracies and assumptions based on poor data, but it gets worse.

The HSE has appointed Professors Debbie Pain and Rhys Green to its Independent Scientific Expert Pool and the agency only published this information in October 2022. This is very concerning because both individuals have been quoted in the media calling for a ban on lead ammunition since the HSE review began.

That clear conflict of interest is magnified when one considers that a dozen and more research papers that the HSE is relying on in its restriction dossier are authored by the very same lead ban campaigners.

Furthermore, Pain and Green are being asked to advise on and critique the HSE’s use of that evidence for its proposals to ban lead ammunition.

The HSE is in effect marking its own homework.

 

If they were to throw the kitchen sink at this, i would rejoin in a flash, win or lose

Edited November 27, 2022 by 8 shot

[bottletopbill]

 

What other orgs have also submitted this on behalf of us the members.

[HantsRob]

15 hours ago, 8 shot said:

 

Now.... Noticed this on the BASC website 

 

Whilst not pro-BASC (I am neutral) this is a really positive step to challenge the decision in a rational way. It's really good to see proactiveness, and I'll be interesting to see if it has any positive outcome and certainly shows a shooting organisation doing what shooters are wanting from them. I'm pleasantly surprised and happy to have my opinion swayed a little. 

[PeterHenry]

16 hours ago, 8 shot said:

 

Now.... Noticed this on the BASC website 

BASC has written to the government’s Environment Audit Committee to hold the Health and Safety Executive to account for significant process failures in its recent review of lead ammunition. Dr Conor O’Gorman explains…

BASC has submitted evidence to the House of Commons Environment Audit Committee, highlighting concerns about the way in which the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has developed its lead ban proposals.

It’s bad enough that the HSE’s findings are based on hundreds of pages of inaccuracies and assumptions based on poor data, but it gets worse.

The HSE has appointed Professors Debbie Pain and Rhys Green to its Independent Scientific Expert Pool and the agency only published this information in October 2022. This is very concerning because both individuals have been quoted in the media calling for a ban on lead ammunition since the HSE review began.

That clear conflict of interest is magnified when one considers that a dozen and more research papers that the HSE is relying on in its restriction dossier are authored by the very same lead ban campaigners.

Furthermore, Pain and Green are being asked to advise on and critique the HSE’s use of that evidence for its proposals to ban lead ammunition.

The HSE is in effect marking its own homework.

 

If they were to throw the kitchen sink at this, i would rejoin in a flash, win or lose

That would certainly seem to have legs

[8 shot]

5 hours ago, PeterHenry said:

That would certainly seem to have legs

As we all know this is a monumental lash-up from the start with no conclusive evidence to support this huge waste of time and resources. I just hope they don't fold at the first sign of a fight

[PeterHenry]

38 minutes ago, 8 shot said:

As we all know this is a monumental lash-up from the start with no conclusive evidence to support this huge waste of time and resources. I just hope they don't fold at the first sign of a fight

Some things will happen whether we like them or not - and lead shot is one that is going to be swept away with the direction the current is moving. BASC and the other orgs noticed that and decided to try and sail with it, as opposed to against it - that way at least they can claim some credit, and also have some form of control. It's not only lead ammunition, it's going or has gone from all sorts - camera lenses for one, petrol for another. Its not targeted against shooting per se - but there are those who are trying to weaponise it - and I am very much in favour of BASC fighting back against those who do try to weponise it.

[McSpredder]

It is good to see that BASC has drawn attention to this, and I hope the other shooting organisations will do likewise. 

The HSE dossier relies on 19 sources attributed to Green and/or Pain (cited 98 times), five from other named members of the LAG (cited 10 times), and six more attributed to the LAG as a body (cited 51 times).  Professor Rhys Green may also have had an influence on other papers referred to in the HSE dossier, because the LAG website states that he is currently on the editorial boards of five peer-reviewed journals.  I assume the quality of science accepted by those five journals might be similar to that revealed in Prof Green’s own publications.

HSE's Independent Scientific Expert Pool includes not only Professors Green and Pain, but also Professor Len Levy, who has been a member of the LAG since its earliest days.  At the end of a publication in which Green & Pain made one of their false assertions about evidence for an average meat portion, the authors wrote “We thank Professor Len Levy for his guidance and advice during the preparation of this paper.” 

Any further involvement of LAG members in relation to the HSE dossier would be pointless because they have stated unequivocally (minutes of LAG meeting, 22 July 2022) that “Consensus among the group is that the HSE Restriction Dossier for Lead Ammunition is thorough and evidence based” and that “No members have any major concerns with any of the science presented.” 

At least one LAG member (Professor Ian Newton) is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a body whose written evidence submitted to the Science and Technology Committee included this sentence: “Examples of poor science include excessive, exclusive or undue emphasis on certain aspects of science or data (often called “cherry picking”) and, in some cases, misrepresentation or public misinformation". 

LAG members have chosen to fully endorse the HSE dossier and the papers published by Green & Pain, despite the egregious cherry picking of evidence, the deliberate distortion of data, and the statistical analyses based on absurdly small sample numbers, all so obvious to other readers.   LAG minutes do not reveal whether individual members had actually studied the documents, or simply approved them as a result of “group-think”.

HSE dossier references.tif