Worked a lifetime in coatings. Simply do not believe you can find a retail paint store owner anywhere who will sell you lead paint. Those guys live under a microscope and know the law. Light-fingered military and warehouse managers certainly exist, buy from them and you are breaking the law just as much as they are.
I know ways to get small quantities of lead paint. Some of them even legal. If I told you how to do it that would be illegal.
If there is any truth at all in the stories being told the party telling them certainly has no idea how to use the product safely. Just stop thinking about lead.