utbagpiper
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The latest from GOUtah!
I have yet to have anyone be able to provide any examples of those mistreating animals going out and reoffending because the punishment available under current law is too light to deter reoffense on the part of those who mistreat animals.
We may well have a problem with prosecutors and judges not using their discretion wisely, plea bargaining down when they shouldn't, or imposing too light of sentences under current law. But if that is the case, giving those same prosecutors and judges the big hammer of a felony charge is exactly the WRONG thing to do.
Please make calls to oppose these bills.
Charles
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 14:54:36
To:GOUtah! Yahoo! <goutah@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: GOUtah! Alert #283
GOUtah!
(Gun Owners of Utah)
http://www.goutahorg.org
Utah's Uncompromising Independent Gun Rights Network.
No Surrender. No Retreat. Not Now. Not Ever.
To subscribe to or unsubscribe from these e-mail alerts, please send
a blank e-mail message to either: goutah-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
or goutah-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
____________________________________
GOUtah! Alert #283 – 7 February 2008
Today’s Maxim of Liberty:
"The supposed quietude of a good mans allures the ruffian; while on
the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and
the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as
property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world
destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not,
others dare not lay them aside...Horrid mischief would ensue were one
half the world deprived of the use of them..."
-- Thomas Paine
“ANIMAL TORTURE” BILLS COMING UP TOMORROW
SB 102 and SB 177 will be heard Friday morning, Feb. 8, at 8:00 a.m.
in room W130 of the West Office Building behind the State Capitol, by
the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice Committee.
SB 102 (sponsored by Sen. Gene Davis) would make it a 3rd-degree
felony to “torture” an animal. This is a back-door gun-control bill
because:
(a) ANY felony conviction automatically and permanently deprives you
of your right to own a gun, and
(b) The term “torture” appears to be broadly and vaguely defined in
this bill, leaving it initially up to local prosecutors to decide
what constitutes “animal torture” when deciding whether to bring a
felony charge against, say, a farmer who shoots a feral animal and
ends up only wounding rather than killing it with the first shot. We
can quite easily envision such an incident being upheld as “animal
torture” in court if this bill gets made into law, which in turn
would set a precedent for future decisions by prosecutors and courts.
GOUtah! has no problem with the existing laws against cruelty to
animals, and we believe that if these laws were rigorously enforced
and if people who deliberately and maliciously did horrible things to
animals ended up in jail for six months or longer (which can happen
under the current law, though it rarely does), an adequate level of
justice and deterrence would be established and there would be few if
any repeat offenders.
However, the animal-rights activists have long wanted to felonize the
mistreatment of animals and are now using one or two recent high-
profile cases of severe cruelty to push their agenda.
Our problem with SB 102 is that felony-level “animal torture” is so
broadly and vaguely defined in the bill that a farmer who shoots a
feral dog or cat and wounds it with the first shot instead of killing
it instantly could be faced with a felony charge, especially if he
lives in the rural portion of one of Utah’s mixed rural-urban
counties where the local district attorney’s office is likely to be
staffed by urbanites who detest the whole rural culture and who
simply can’t stand the idea of an animal being shot under any
circumstances.
SB 102 exempts wildlife (including endangered species), rodeo
animals, livestock, zoo animals, animals used in medical research,
etc. We speculate that the bill’s backers know that their definition
of “torture” is so vague and so broad that it could be used to shut
down hunting, fishing, rodeos, farms, ranches, medical research labs,
etc., which would generate enormous opposition to the bill. So they
exempted these kinds of animals from the bill in order to avoid such
opposition. But this doesn’t do much good for those of us who, for
example, live just outside the fringes of suburbia, where city-
dwellers often abandon unwanted pets, which then become feral and
reproduce.
If you’re a farmer living in a rural section of Summit
County, for example, and there’s an abandoned dog roaming the area
that has turned feral and that’s harassing your chickens or your own
pets, and you call animal control, they’ll probably tell you to catch
the dog and confine it and then maybe they’ll come out within a day
or two to retrieve it. You realize that this is either impossible or
impractical, so you shoot the dog but you wound it instead of killing
it, and it runs off and dies slowly and eventually ends up dead in
your neighbor’s driveway. The neighbor, a former urbanite who hates
guns, calls the cops.
You get arrested on an animal-cruelty charge.
The district attorney turns out to be a Los Angeles native who now
lives in Park City and who hates hunters, ranchers, shooters, and
other rural types. He looks closely at the new law and decides that
he can charge you with a felony because you inflicted pain and
suffering on the dog. You end up having to spend $10,000 to hire an
attorney to defend against this felony charge. The jury ends up
being stacked with anti-gun anti-hunting Park City residents who are
former urbanites (not an unrealistic scenario, given that most of
Summit County’s population now consists of former urbanites living in
the Park City area).
Best-case scenario: you get acquitted but you
still owe your attorney $10,000 (as opposed to $1,500 for a typical
misdemeanor defense). Worst-case scenario: you get convicted and,
regardless of the sentence handed down by the judge, you
automatically lose the right to own a gun or to even hold a gun in
your hands for the rest of your life. And you still owe your
attorney $10,000. After that, if you so much as go target shooting
with a .22 rifle and someone turns you in, you’re looking at a MAJOR
federal felony charge for being “a felon in possession of a firearm”
and, quite probably, a stay in federal prison.
Again, the whole issue for us is that we don’t want to see any new
laws passed that could enable the authorities to automatically and
permanently strip a person of his gun rights for a relatively minor
act. In our opinion, SB 102 falls in this category. Felony status
should be reserved for heinous crimes against people, in our view.
SB 117 (sponsored by Sen. Allen Christensen) is a somewhat lighter
version of SB 102, in that it creates a felony for “animal torture”
only upon a second conviction that occurs any time within 5 years of
a first conviction, with the first conviction being a misdemeanor.
While this bill would not be as bad as SB 102, it still has
problems. If it passes, the animal-rights activists are likely to
work to get the 5-year statute of limitations extended to 10 years,
or removed completely, which would essentially turn SB 117 into the
equivalent of SB 102.
Ironically, while our hypothetical Utah farmer could be prosecuted on
felony charges under SB 102 for shooting a feral dog, a psychopath
who captures a bald eagle and slowly tortures it to death would only
be guilty of a misdemeanor under this same bill.
ACTION ITEM
SB 102 and SB 177 will be heard Friday morning, Feb. 8, at 8:00 a.m.
in room W130 of the West Office Building behind the State Capitol, by
the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice
Committee. We encourage you to contact one or more of the following
committee members and encourage them to oppose SB 102 and SB 117. If
you happen to live in the district of one of these senators, please
mention this fact when contacting him. Also, if you can attend the
hearing and speak against these bills, even if it's just a 30-second
statement that you oppose the bill, this would help a lot.
Sen. Greg Bell e-mail: gbell@utahsenate.org cell: (801)971-2001
Sen. John Valentine e-mail: jvalentine@utahsenate.org home: (801)
224-1693
Sen. Jon Greiner e-mail: jgreiner@utahsenate.org home: (801)621-0423
Alternatively, you may send a letter or fax to any of these senators
at the Capitol, or you may leave a brief message at the Capitol
switchboard. Capitol Hill contact info is provided below.
Utah State Senate
320 State Capitol
P.O. Box 145115
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114
Phone: 801-538-1035
Fax for Republican senators: 801-326-1475
Fax for Democratic senators: 801-326-1476
__________________________________________
That concludes GOUtah! Alert #283 – 7 February 2008.
Copyright 2008 by GOUtah!. All rights reserved.
PRE-WRITTEN LETTER BELOW
----- Cut here ------
Date:
From:
To:
Dear________________________:
I encourage you to oppose SB 102 and SB 117, the “animal torture”
bills. These bills serve as back-door gun-control legislation, due
to the felony clauses they contain.
Under federal law, any felony conviction results in the automatic and
permanent revocation of the convicted person’s right to possess a
firearm, no matter how minor his criminal act might have been. While
this may be appropriate for murder, rape, robbery, and other heinous
violent crimes against people, I’m concerned that the definition of
“animal torture” in SB 102 and SB 117 is so broad and vague that it
could result in felony prosecutions for relatively minor acts, such
as a rural Utahn shooting a feral dog or cat and wounding it with the
first shot – especially if the local district attorney is an urbanite
who hates guns and shooting and other rural activities. This
scenario can easily be envisioned in many of Utah’s mixed rural-urban
counties such as Summit County, Utah County, Weber County, etc.
I have no problem with the existing misdemeanor laws against cruelty
to animals, and I believe that if these laws were more vigorously
enforced, with violators serving 6 months of actual jail time, they
would provide an effective deterrent and there would be few if any
repeat offenders.
Thanks for taking time to consider my opinion on this matter.
Sincerely,
------- Cut here -------
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The latest from GOUtah!
I have yet to have anyone be able to provide any examples of those mistreating animals going out and reoffending because the punishment available under current law is too light to deter reoffense on the part of those who mistreat animals.
We may well have a problem with prosecutors and judges not using their discretion wisely, plea bargaining down when they shouldn't, or imposing too light of sentences under current law. But if that is the case, giving those same prosecutors and judges the big hammer of a felony charge is exactly the WRONG thing to do.
Please make calls to oppose these bills.
Charles
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 14:54:36
To:GOUtah! Yahoo! <goutah@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: GOUtah! Alert #283
GOUtah!
(Gun Owners of Utah)
http://www.goutahorg.org
Utah's Uncompromising Independent Gun Rights Network.
No Surrender. No Retreat. Not Now. Not Ever.
To subscribe to or unsubscribe from these e-mail alerts, please send
a blank e-mail message to either: goutah-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
or goutah-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
____________________________________
GOUtah! Alert #283 – 7 February 2008
Today’s Maxim of Liberty:
"The supposed quietude of a good mans allures the ruffian; while on
the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and
the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as
property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world
destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not,
others dare not lay them aside...Horrid mischief would ensue were one
half the world deprived of the use of them..."
-- Thomas Paine
“ANIMAL TORTURE” BILLS COMING UP TOMORROW
SB 102 and SB 177 will be heard Friday morning, Feb. 8, at 8:00 a.m.
in room W130 of the West Office Building behind the State Capitol, by
the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice Committee.
SB 102 (sponsored by Sen. Gene Davis) would make it a 3rd-degree
felony to “torture” an animal. This is a back-door gun-control bill
because:
(a) ANY felony conviction automatically and permanently deprives you
of your right to own a gun, and
(b) The term “torture” appears to be broadly and vaguely defined in
this bill, leaving it initially up to local prosecutors to decide
what constitutes “animal torture” when deciding whether to bring a
felony charge against, say, a farmer who shoots a feral animal and
ends up only wounding rather than killing it with the first shot. We
can quite easily envision such an incident being upheld as “animal
torture” in court if this bill gets made into law, which in turn
would set a precedent for future decisions by prosecutors and courts.
GOUtah! has no problem with the existing laws against cruelty to
animals, and we believe that if these laws were rigorously enforced
and if people who deliberately and maliciously did horrible things to
animals ended up in jail for six months or longer (which can happen
under the current law, though it rarely does), an adequate level of
justice and deterrence would be established and there would be few if
any repeat offenders.
However, the animal-rights activists have long wanted to felonize the
mistreatment of animals and are now using one or two recent high-
profile cases of severe cruelty to push their agenda.
Our problem with SB 102 is that felony-level “animal torture” is so
broadly and vaguely defined in the bill that a farmer who shoots a
feral dog or cat and wounds it with the first shot instead of killing
it instantly could be faced with a felony charge, especially if he
lives in the rural portion of one of Utah’s mixed rural-urban
counties where the local district attorney’s office is likely to be
staffed by urbanites who detest the whole rural culture and who
simply can’t stand the idea of an animal being shot under any
circumstances.
SB 102 exempts wildlife (including endangered species), rodeo
animals, livestock, zoo animals, animals used in medical research,
etc. We speculate that the bill’s backers know that their definition
of “torture” is so vague and so broad that it could be used to shut
down hunting, fishing, rodeos, farms, ranches, medical research labs,
etc., which would generate enormous opposition to the bill. So they
exempted these kinds of animals from the bill in order to avoid such
opposition. But this doesn’t do much good for those of us who, for
example, live just outside the fringes of suburbia, where city-
dwellers often abandon unwanted pets, which then become feral and
reproduce.
If you’re a farmer living in a rural section of Summit
County, for example, and there’s an abandoned dog roaming the area
that has turned feral and that’s harassing your chickens or your own
pets, and you call animal control, they’ll probably tell you to catch
the dog and confine it and then maybe they’ll come out within a day
or two to retrieve it. You realize that this is either impossible or
impractical, so you shoot the dog but you wound it instead of killing
it, and it runs off and dies slowly and eventually ends up dead in
your neighbor’s driveway. The neighbor, a former urbanite who hates
guns, calls the cops.
You get arrested on an animal-cruelty charge.
The district attorney turns out to be a Los Angeles native who now
lives in Park City and who hates hunters, ranchers, shooters, and
other rural types. He looks closely at the new law and decides that
he can charge you with a felony because you inflicted pain and
suffering on the dog. You end up having to spend $10,000 to hire an
attorney to defend against this felony charge. The jury ends up
being stacked with anti-gun anti-hunting Park City residents who are
former urbanites (not an unrealistic scenario, given that most of
Summit County’s population now consists of former urbanites living in
the Park City area).
Best-case scenario: you get acquitted but you
still owe your attorney $10,000 (as opposed to $1,500 for a typical
misdemeanor defense). Worst-case scenario: you get convicted and,
regardless of the sentence handed down by the judge, you
automatically lose the right to own a gun or to even hold a gun in
your hands for the rest of your life. And you still owe your
attorney $10,000. After that, if you so much as go target shooting
with a .22 rifle and someone turns you in, you’re looking at a MAJOR
federal felony charge for being “a felon in possession of a firearm”
and, quite probably, a stay in federal prison.
Again, the whole issue for us is that we don’t want to see any new
laws passed that could enable the authorities to automatically and
permanently strip a person of his gun rights for a relatively minor
act. In our opinion, SB 102 falls in this category. Felony status
should be reserved for heinous crimes against people, in our view.
SB 117 (sponsored by Sen. Allen Christensen) is a somewhat lighter
version of SB 102, in that it creates a felony for “animal torture”
only upon a second conviction that occurs any time within 5 years of
a first conviction, with the first conviction being a misdemeanor.
While this bill would not be as bad as SB 102, it still has
problems. If it passes, the animal-rights activists are likely to
work to get the 5-year statute of limitations extended to 10 years,
or removed completely, which would essentially turn SB 117 into the
equivalent of SB 102.
Ironically, while our hypothetical Utah farmer could be prosecuted on
felony charges under SB 102 for shooting a feral dog, a psychopath
who captures a bald eagle and slowly tortures it to death would only
be guilty of a misdemeanor under this same bill.
ACTION ITEM
SB 102 and SB 177 will be heard Friday morning, Feb. 8, at 8:00 a.m.
in room W130 of the West Office Building behind the State Capitol, by
the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice
Committee. We encourage you to contact one or more of the following
committee members and encourage them to oppose SB 102 and SB 117. If
you happen to live in the district of one of these senators, please
mention this fact when contacting him. Also, if you can attend the
hearing and speak against these bills, even if it's just a 30-second
statement that you oppose the bill, this would help a lot.
Sen. Greg Bell e-mail: gbell@utahsenate.org cell: (801)971-2001
Sen. John Valentine e-mail: jvalentine@utahsenate.org home: (801)
224-1693
Sen. Jon Greiner e-mail: jgreiner@utahsenate.org home: (801)621-0423
Alternatively, you may send a letter or fax to any of these senators
at the Capitol, or you may leave a brief message at the Capitol
switchboard. Capitol Hill contact info is provided below.
Utah State Senate
320 State Capitol
P.O. Box 145115
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114
Phone: 801-538-1035
Fax for Republican senators: 801-326-1475
Fax for Democratic senators: 801-326-1476
__________________________________________
That concludes GOUtah! Alert #283 – 7 February 2008.
Copyright 2008 by GOUtah!. All rights reserved.
PRE-WRITTEN LETTER BELOW
----- Cut here ------
Date:
From:
To:
Dear________________________:
I encourage you to oppose SB 102 and SB 117, the “animal torture”
bills. These bills serve as back-door gun-control legislation, due
to the felony clauses they contain.
Under federal law, any felony conviction results in the automatic and
permanent revocation of the convicted person’s right to possess a
firearm, no matter how minor his criminal act might have been. While
this may be appropriate for murder, rape, robbery, and other heinous
violent crimes against people, I’m concerned that the definition of
“animal torture” in SB 102 and SB 117 is so broad and vague that it
could result in felony prosecutions for relatively minor acts, such
as a rural Utahn shooting a feral dog or cat and wounding it with the
first shot – especially if the local district attorney is an urbanite
who hates guns and shooting and other rural activities. This
scenario can easily be envisioned in many of Utah’s mixed rural-urban
counties such as Summit County, Utah County, Weber County, etc.
I have no problem with the existing misdemeanor laws against cruelty
to animals, and I believe that if these laws were more vigorously
enforced, with violators serving 6 months of actual jail time, they
would provide an effective deterrent and there would be few if any
repeat offenders.
Thanks for taking time to consider my opinion on this matter.
Sincerely,
------- Cut here -------
To Subscribe, send a blank message to:
goutah-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
goutah-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/goutah/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/goutah/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:goutah-digest@yahoogroups.com
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<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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