New animal abuse laws

[Hawk]

The Michigan Senate has delayed voting on legislation that would reclassify and stiffen criminal penalties for people who treat animals cruelly or neglect them.

The bills were expected to be approved Tuesday and sent to the House. But majority Republican senators had questions about the measures in a closed-door meeting and decided to postpone voting.
*** END UPDATE ***
Legislation up for a vote in the Michigan Senate would reclassify and stiffen criminal penalties for people who treat animals cruelly or neglect them.

The bills are expected to be approved Tuesday and sent to the House.

They would create harsher felony penalties if people abuse or neglect 10 or more animals. The current law would be extended to specifically cover breeders and pet shop owners.

Senators also propose creating a tiered system to classify degrees of torturing or killing animals.

Someone convicted of killing or mutilating an animal now gets up to four years in prison.

The legislation would increase prison time to up to 10 years if the animal was a pet and the defendant killed it to hurt or threaten another person.

 

[Kalidasa]

I hope it passes

 

[gracebowen]

I have mixed feelings about this. There are cases of people wanting to help and taking in too many strays or where they can't get them fixed and end up with too many to care for properly. Please don't say if you can't fix it don't get it. I'm talking about people who take animals off of the streets and at least give them a home. Affording 30 a month for food is much easier than fixing them. An associate of mine ended up in this situation several years ago. He ended up with 4 females that had 6 babies each at the same time. He tried to surrender them to animal control and lo and behold you have to pay to surrender them. He had to move and ended up leaving them.

 

[Psittaciformes]

10 or more is a felony? That's ridiculous, it should be 1 or more!
4 years for killing or mutilating an animal, and you can get way more for simple drug possession. Doesn't make sense.

The laws must have been really bad before ... Hope it passes though.

 

[Hawk]

I have mixed feelings about this. There are cases of people wanting to help and taking in too many strays or where they can't get them fixed and end up with too many to care for properly. Please don't say if you can't fix it don't get it. I'm talking about people who take animals off of the streets and at least give them a home. Affording 30 a month for food is much easier than fixing them. An associate of mine ended up in this situation several years ago. He ended up with 4 females that had 6 babies each at the same time. He tried to surrender them to animal control and lo and behold you have to pay to surrender them. He had to move and ended up leaving them.

I agree with you on that part....don't you wish you could save them all?

 

[Birdman666]

Sounds like a law targeting dog fighting rings to me... Bottom line, with no money allocated for enforcement, even if they pass it, it doesn't do any good.

And in terms of hoarders, THAT IS A MENTAL HEALTH issue, and there's no funding for mental health either. Putting THOSE people in prison is not the answer.

Responding to complaints, my bat $%#@ crazy neighbor has 50 cats, 80 dogs, and at least a dozen parrots in his 1000 square foot house... could the city please send someone to check this out?!

[Sound of crickets chirping.]

I've seen the damage those people do, but you also have to realize that they are not all there... and we need better mental health intervention, and services. They are practically nonexistent in this country - really - since the Reagan administration cut funding... but they weren't all that well funded to begin with!

We could fund the program for the cost associated with putting one or two hoarders behind bars for ten years...

Identification, intervention and prevention is way better than long after the fact punishment...

 

[Hawk]

Sounds like a law targeting dog fighting rings to me... Bottom line, with no money allocated for enforcement, even if they pass it, it doesn't do any good.

And in terms of hoarders, THAT IS A MENTAL HEALTH issue, and there's no funding for mental health either. Putting THOSE people in prison is not the answer.

Responding to complaints, my bat $%#@ crazy neighbor has 50 cats, 80 dogs, and at least a dozen parrots in his 1000 square foot house... could the city please send someone to check this out?!

[Sound of crickets chirping.]

I've seen the damage those people do, but you also have to realize that they are not all there... and we need better mental health intervention, and services. They are practically nonexistent in this country - really - since the Reagan administration cut funding... but they weren't all that well funded to begin with!

We could fund the program for the cost associated with putting one or two hoarders behind bars for ten years...

Identification, intervention and prevention is way better than long after the fact punishment...

Actually lately they have really camped down....they did a couple ( ha ha a couple) 2 week long crack down on animal abuse. They check, they took an entire lot of Horses because they Looked under fed.

They arrested a guy because his kid threw a puppy into the road in front of an oncoming car. Another guy took a lot (8) puppies to work and threw them into a heat treating pit.

The list goes on, and it's daily news literally. But I agree, who's paying for this?? Obama?

 

[JerseyWendy]

Just a very friendly reminder that we do NOT tolerate political debates on this forum.

http://www.parrotforums.com/off-topic/38119-no-religion-no-politics.html