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

  • ExcursionInversion@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    14 hours ago

    Yeah, but I read something on reddit that says Americans all have guns and love shooting them. So they must all have brain damage

    • discostjohn@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      16 hours ago

      I can’t remember where I read it, but I’ve heard that Americans all have guns and love shooting them, so they must have brain damage

      • reddwarf@feddit.nl
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        15 hours ago

        I appreciate you all for the anecdotes and source materials, some well researched things to ponder!

        Here’s my take on it:

        I can’t remember where I read it, but I’ve heard that Americans all have guns and love shooting them, so they must have brain damage.