Anyhow, Hevi-Shot, bismuth, and tungsten replaced steel giving the impression that steel wasn’t adequate enough for goose and duck hunting i.e. leading the public to believe that the conventional equipment wasn’t effective enough to use without the aid of the non-toxic shot. Likewise, Hevi-Shot, Tungsten-Matrix, etc. give the impression that lead isn’t adequate for turkey hunting. 3 ½" magnums give the impression that the other shells are not adequate enough, etc.
Actually, steel wasn't as effective due to the physical limitatons it had (density, hardness) as lead, which is easy enough to see. Hunters switching to bismuth / hevi shot / tungsten weren't saying that the "conventional equipment" wasn't good enough, they were simply saying steel wasn't as good as the "conventional equipment (lead)", which had been outlawed. As for your argument about turkey hunting, I have yet to hear someone say lead isn't effective for turkey hunting???
I doubt the non hunting public has a problem with hunters improving their equipment to make more efficient quick clean kills, but most of them aren't gonna be real happy about animals running off to die of poison,in fact while typing this I asked a friend of my girlfriends who isa non-hunter, not against it but no wish to do it either. I asked her if she would support the idea of using poison tipped arrows to decrease the amount of deer wounded and lost by bowhunters. Her response was "I though that a bow was perfectly good at killinga deer? why would you want to make the animal suffer? Is this something for people who aren't good shots"?
I explained to her it was not to make them suffer, but to decrease lost deer but she didn't seem pleased either way.
So there is one view from a non hunter, and I agree with her to an extent, get out there and practice and you won't need the poison anyway!