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Comment by badcppdev | Hacker News Reader

Just feed the bullet to the artist. Then it's art and 'safe'.

Does anyone know if ingesting and excreting a (small) bullet is particularly unhealthy?

Presumably this was a full cartridge (strictly speaking, the bullet is just the projectile; the cartridge includes the case, primer, and propellant).

Bullets are made of primarily lead; military rounds are always covered with another metal; civilian rounds may or may not be. Either way I wouldn't want to swallow the bullet. Then you have the primer and powder, which I also wouldn't want to swallow.

Putting it in your pocket and walking out would be a better idea.

Bullets are typically made of lead, so it's not ideal, but I'd rather swallow a bullet than have strangers wield a loaded gun in my direction.

Ingesting lead isn't healthy. From wikipedia: Lead is a devastating and persistent neurotoxin that accumulates in soft tissues and bones.

Elemental lead is bad but not that bad. It will mostly pass through the digestive system undigested. Especially something with a small surface area like a bullet.

Obviously still not something you want to do. But swallowing a bullet of any kind is probably not something you want to do anyways.

As I understand it, touching lead is actually worse than swallowing it because your skin is better at absorbing it than your digestive tract is. Also the toxicity comes from accumulation over time rather than accute exposure.

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