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Eleven U.S. states have pending animal abuse registry legislation:
Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and the Columbine High School shooters are among the infamous criminals who had a history of hurting animals before they went on to target humans, a tendency that's part of what's behind a movement to create public online registries of known animal abusers.
New York is among 11 states with animal abuse registry bills pending in their legislatures, following Tennessee, which started its in 2016 along with a growing number of municipalities in recent years, including New York City, and the counties that include Chicago and Tampa, Florida.
"Animal abuse is a bridge crime," said the sponsor of New York's bill, Republican state Sen. Jim Tedisco, who noted that Nikolas Cruz, accused of killing 17 people in the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting on Feb. 14, reportedly also had a history of shooting small animals.
While the main goal of collecting names of convicted animal abusers is to prevent them from being able to adopt or purchase other animals, registry backers say such lists could also be a way to raise red flags about people who may commit other violent crimes ranging from domestic violence to mass shootings. But some animal welfare advocates, mostly notably the ASPCA, question how effective they can really be.
[Ed's Comment - Original link unreliable, so I have added additional links]
Additional Sources:
- http://www.vmdtoday.com/news/animal-abuser-registry-legislation-sought-stalled
- https://www.navs.org/state-animal-abuser-registries-proposed-2018/
- http://www.ladbible.com/news/animals-news-us-states-and-counties-are-registering-animal-abuse-like-sex-offences-20180218
- https://nhes.org/animal-abuser-registries/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @09:09PM (6 children)
Today I am a middle-aged person with a clean record and a large family. We're pretty tame, but I still don't care about animals. I'm not at all personally violent toward humans, except that I reserve the right to a vigorous self defense with deadly force. Let's see what I've done...
1. dipped a fish head-first into acid
2. shot a squirrel with a slingshot, knocking the tail off
3. poisoned a cat that was causing trouble
4. opened a live frog, then applied electric shocks to the heart
5. ran down a duck with my car so I could eat it
6. burned a snake in a bucket with alcohol
That's just the vertebrates. The usual PETA-flavored thought is that I'm about to run around attacking my fellow humans, but no. I think the dangerous people who do weird (supposedly "cruel") things to animals share something in common with PETA members: personification of animals. If you personify animals, then how you treat animals is how you treat your fellow human beings. I and many other people do not personify animals. How I treat an animal bears as much relation to how I treat a human as how I treat a plant, car part, or rock. To me, being cruel to a cat is on a level with being cruel to an HP LaserJet 4. Humans are entirely distinct.
Only a subset of the supposed animal abusers are hazardous. It's the ones who personify animals, and really feel that they are actually being cruel. If you enjoy that, you may be a problem. On the other hand, if you don't personify animals, then in your view it's like kicking a rock or taking apart a toaster or cutting an apple. Without that personification, there is nothing to suggest that the person enjoys cruelty.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @11:05PM (5 children)
Wow there is some self-serving logic. My guess is you are a sociopath that knows to follow the rules. Your basic mammalian empathy is defective to some degree, but you learned "morality" probably from the church which gives a free pass on whatever a human wants to do to animals.
Your antipathy and anger towards PETA is probably the result of your conscience trying to assert itself and you are stomping it back down with twisted logic that makes them evil and you just a common sense rational monkey. Errm, PERSON not monkey! Can only burst so many bubbles in one comment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @11:56PM (4 children)
I agree with such churches, despite being atheist. They are right, though for nonsense reasons.
There isn't any "basic mammalian empathy". Watch a cat with a mouse and you'll learn. Tigers see you as food. Most mammals don't even have empathy for their own kind.
Even if "basic mammalian empathy" were legitimate, I'm more than just a basic mammal. I can understand that non-human creatures are not of my type. I can serve them for dinner. I can take them apart to satisfy my curiosity. I can spray them to exterminate them in bulk.
Humans, like so many other creatures, have evolved to make use of the available resources. Animals are resources to be used. Aside from the obvious safety issues, there is nothing wrong with picking one up (alive) and eating it like an apple.
If somebody were to say he enjoyed animal torture, I would consider him crazy for multiple reasons. First, you shouldn't feel emotion when things (good or bad) happen to animals; this is a mental failing. Second, you shouldn't enjoy torture outside of revenge, not that I accept that torture can exist without a human victim. Third, sadly, one normally needs to be careful about admitting such things. :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @12:05AM (1 child)
"Second, you shouldn't enjoy torture outside of revenge, not that I accept that torture can exist without a human victim."
Eeeesh, at least it is easy to see why you came up with #3. I see you are operating from the sociopathic human perspective. Some animals have more empathy than others, and natural predator instincts do override a good portion of empathy, but you are just oh-so-wrong with your simplistic assumptions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:40AM
As a human with intelligence, you should rationally override any empathy you feel for animals. It is illogical. Wipe that defective emotion from your mind.
One might as well feel empathy for the HP LaserJet 4 (or thereabouts) which gets beaten to death in the movie Office Space. Ow! The torture! We should make a list of printer abusers.
Again, I don't show the normal sociopath signs. I'm not one to screw over my coworkers. I would not feel OK with defrauding a shopkeeper, for example with an unjustified return. I don't swipe unattended valuables, even if I know I can get away with it. I wouldn't cheat on my wife, even if I could get away with it, despite the fact that she is now middle-aged.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:19PM (1 child)
"First, you shouldn't feel emotion when things (good or bad) happen to animals;"
bullshit, motherfucker. animals are innocent. they deserve respect. it doesn't mean i won't kill one, but i try not to without good reason. humans who abuse their position against animals? fuck them and their lives. they ruin the world for everyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:53PM
There was a cat that shit in my garden. He's guilty. He needs punishment. I could build a little prison for him, but that is such a pain, and he's only a cat. Execution is better.