Sounds like a hate crime argument to me. Should we punish hunters who kill for food yet enjoy the sport involved in killing? The problem is one person's necessity(Hunter) is another person's murder(PETA).
When I see stuff like this I am more concerned about the increasing arguments for animal rights. And like it or not, these kind of rulings set precedents.
I agree that what he did is sick but 18 months in prison is inconsistent and silly when we have people convicted of vehicular homicide who serve only a few months.
It isn't remotely analogous.
We are reading a lot into the article that isn't there. We assume, and it has been said more than once that this guy killed the puppy for fun, or for pleasure, or for sport. I don't believe he did it for any of those reasons. I think the guy lost his temper and killed the puppy in frustration and anger.
He got a 5 year sentence suspended after 18 months, and if he does anything like this within the suspension time, he will be back in prison until the 5 years is over. This is indicative that he may have a prior record of losing control of his temper. We don't know enough about this guy to really question the sentence. Did he have prior assault convictions? Restraining orders against him from an ex-spouse or girlfriend because of physical abuse? We don't know, and it is entirely possible that the judge was hard on him because of an escalating propensity to violence.
I would imagine that the mainstream media is in quite a quandry about reporting this, because if they reveal a record and show the guy as a bastard, then they're not going to get the prisoners rights sympathy thing, but if they don't disclose his entire past, then they can't capitalize on the guy going away for killing a cute cuddly puppy. It looks to me from following this thread that they actually accomplished both goals.
And yes, it has been well documented that people that kill animals out of either pleasure or anger are more likely to, at some point, hurt, maime or kill a human out of pleasure or anger. The serial killers whos pasts they have studied have shown this over and over and over again from Jeff Dahmer to Charles Manson to Ted Bundy (Is that his name, Ted?)
People that abuse family members also abuse the family pets. It's just the way it goes.
Hunters that hunt for sport as well as for food, or even hunters that hunt for trophies are different than recreational killers with the psychological propensity to become serial killers or abusers, because a hunter will not torture his prey. Hunters go for the clean shot and the quick kill, where-as, the typical psychotic mind will torture or abuse the victim for a period of time, from minutes to hours to days or weeks or months before finally putting the thing (or person) out of its misery. Part of the pleasure for this person is the torture.
The autopsy report on the puppy showed prior abuse, which means that the guy beat the dog on more than one occasion. He probably didn't even kill the dog on purpose this time, but this is how death from beating often happens to a family member or a pet. The guy just loses control, and doesn't stop until the victim isn't moving. If he did this to a dog, then yes, eventually he will do it to a person. History has shown it to be true.