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VPC - Poisonous Pastime - Section One Page 9 of 16 ranges.' Yet using shooting ranges to get children and youth involved in the "shooting sports" is an integral part of the gun industry's survival strategy, described in more detail in Appendix A. The National Rifle Association supports the gun industry's overall range survival strategy by helping to underwrite school shooting ranges. In Illinois alone, for example, the NRA increased grants for school shooting ranges from $7,844 in 1995 to more than $23,750 in 1998.55 Cover, Insights, April 1996 Unfortunately, many school administrators appear to be oblivious to the threat that lead from shooting ranges presents to the health of the children under their care —until after a problem is discovered. For example, officials in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, learned of lead contamination at six high school shooting ranges only after one student had a routine blood test unrelated to the shooting program and was found to have elevated lead levels. When blood tests were given to other students in the program, they were also found to have elevated blood lead levels. As a result, the rifle ranges were closed.56 Similarly, lead contamination at an indoor shooting range in the basement of an elementary school in Lynbrook, New York, was discovered only after a parent raised the issue of lead contamination with the school superintendent. "I decided, innocently, to have an air test, expecting to be able to stand up and say the range had a clean bill of health," said the school official. "I got the results and was shocked. I made the decision to close the school, shut down the range and begin the cleanup.i57 The revelation prompted state officials to advise all schools with such ranges to have similar tests done, and two other schools with firing ranges were subsequently temporarily closed.56 Growing public concern with gun violence and an especial distaste for the mix of firearms in schools after such tragedies as the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 have forced the closing of some school shooting ranges.59 A New Jersey school board shut down an indoor range that had been inconspicuously operated by an adult gun club under an elementary school after a group of boy scouts wandered into the range from the school gym.60 Although the danger of exposing elementary age children to lead has been well documented by public health experts, range supporters insist on maintaining ranges in schools. But even after school ranges have been shut down, they may continue to poison students. For example, when the Louisville, Kentucky, school system tested for lead at sites in 20 schools slated http://www.vpc.org/studies/leadone.htm 2/5/2014