Can still beat your dog
Go ahead and beat your dog and kill that yowling cat -- lawmakers have your back.
House members Tuesday amended HB61, stripping out sections that would have raised the penalty from a Class A misdemeanor to a third degree felony.
Logan Republican Rep. Scott Wyatt's bill apparently was an invitation for apocryphal stories and folksy opinions Tuesday.
Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, was "aghast" when she said she watched a limping calf carried out of a rodeo on a stretcher. Dairy farmer Kerry Gibson, an Ogden Republican, said no behavior with animals should be a felony. And Orem Republican Rep. Lorie Fowlke, apropos of nothing, warned of prison overcrowding when all those animal torturers are prosecuted.
"It will cost you more agents, more beds and more cars," Fowlke said. "Pretty soon, we're going to have to create superfelonies."
Wyatt, a Logan Republican, noted 41 other states have similar laws and every Western state, except Utah and Idaho, classifies animal torture as a felony. Even he hinged on hyperbole to reassure them.
"This bill doesn't affect trapping rights. You can rat poison your rats. You can poison your mice. You have a legal privilege to kill your own animal in a manner you choose, even if it's less artful than the way someone else might. You just can't hang them up, cut them open, do satanic things on them," he said.
Actually, never mind. You can do that. It's only a misdemeanor, after all.
--Rebecca Walsh
House members Tuesday amended HB61, stripping out sections that would have raised the penalty from a Class A misdemeanor to a third degree felony.
Logan Republican Rep. Scott Wyatt's bill apparently was an invitation for apocryphal stories and folksy opinions Tuesday.
Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, was "aghast" when she said she watched a limping calf carried out of a rodeo on a stretcher. Dairy farmer Kerry Gibson, an Ogden Republican, said no behavior with animals should be a felony. And Orem Republican Rep. Lorie Fowlke, apropos of nothing, warned of prison overcrowding when all those animal torturers are prosecuted.
"It will cost you more agents, more beds and more cars," Fowlke said. "Pretty soon, we're going to have to create superfelonies."
Wyatt, a Logan Republican, noted 41 other states have similar laws and every Western state, except Utah and Idaho, classifies animal torture as a felony. Even he hinged on hyperbole to reassure them.
"This bill doesn't affect trapping rights. You can rat poison your rats. You can poison your mice. You have a legal privilege to kill your own animal in a manner you choose, even if it's less artful than the way someone else might. You just can't hang them up, cut them open, do satanic things on them," he said.
Actually, never mind. You can do that. It's only a misdemeanor, after all.
--Rebecca Walsh
4 Comments:
Misdemeanor vs felony, what are the legislators thinking?
So its okay to torture poor innocent dogs, cats? That is the message being sent here, is our society supposed to embrace abusing animals as a daily and natural occurrence?
Well the door is once again open for all the Ted Bundys to start as children, abusing these poor helpless animals and more on to other vicious crimes.
Come on Kerry Gibson, the Ogden Republican quoted in this blog, who said no behavior with animals should be a felony. Ask yourself this, is it really okay to abuse an animal? To hit, kick, cut, set them on fire, dump them in the rivers, starve them deprive them of water and adequate shelter? I think not and feel sorry for the animals that you're in control of.
Anyone with a sense of humanity should realize that abusing an animal is not accepted behavior in any society. What is wrong with you people, would you be able to just stand by and watch someone abusing an animal and just turn your back and walk away?
I'm afraid that our legislators don't have hearts.
This just burns me. Years ago a woman stole my cat. Over a 15 year period, animal control estimated that she had killed more than 100 cats with abusive behavior. If I went into detail, you would vomit. My cat survived (although she had lost half her body weight, her fur, and her back leg muscles atrophied from being locked in a cat carrier with 5 other adult cats and a litter of kittens) and I got her back. The woman was convicted of theft and was given 6 months probation. A year after her conviction, she was arrested with 29 cats in a studio apartment. 5 had been canibalized, the rest had to be put down from disease. She continues to menace animal owners and there is nothing the police can do under current laws. My case became theft, because I was the first owner that had come forward and had filed a report. A felony conviction would keep her off the streets.
Lorie Fowlke continues to show that she is perhaps even more narrow minded and bigoted than Chris Buttars. I just hope she doesn't actually represent the views of people in Orem like she says she does.
So, not only does she come out as one of the only 4 people to speak against the hate crimes bill, she follows up saying that animal torture is so common and there are so many people so guilty of this that it will fill up all the prisons in Utah. So we should just let people continue and charge a fee for getting caught. At least that's what she seems to be saying -- isn't it?
Arf!
Torturing your innocent animals should be a felony, but the definition of torture needs to be articulated. As a dog, I am very concerned that this legislature does not recognize the obligations that humans have toward us animals. Just because we are considered property does not mean that we don’t deserve humane treatment.
Grrrrrrr!
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