I take the OT approach to this kind of crap.
If a person is injured by an animal, the owner is fined. Proportional to the kind of injury suffered.
If a person’s animals kill a person, the animal’s owner is put to death. Accidentally killed or deliberately killed by them. That tells you how high a regard God has both for human life, and for prematurely ending a human life.
re: “If a person’s animals kill a person, the animal’s owner is put to death. Accidentally killed or deliberately killed by them. That tells you how high a regard God has both for human life, and for prematurely ending a human life.”
I totally agree that God has high regard for human life, but I think you are misunderstanding what the Old Testament scriptures teach. The passage in question is Exodus 21:27-29.
There are circumstances that had to be met to require the death penalty for the owner of animal that killed a person.
First, the animal had to have a history of attacking people. Whether these dogs had that history, I don’t know.
Second, the owner of a dangerous animal had to have neglected confining the animal and allowed the animal to get loose.
Were these dogs on the owner’s yard? It sounds like they were. The mother said she “thought” there was an adult/owner with her child and the dogs. Also, when the husband/owner came home, he put down the dogs himself.
It sounds to me, from the information given in the article, that the dogs were in their yard, but the mother made the fatal mistake of thinking there was supervision of the dogs and her son. I’m not trying to blame her, I’m just saying this was a tragic mistake. I cannot imagine her pain. I cannot imagine the pain of her friends.
But, unless there is more information given, I don’t see that the owner was deserving of the death penalty.