[Hacksaw]

The only bad thing about this is that animal life seems to be respected more thatn human life. The thug in Seattle who killed a person in the Mardi Gras celebration only got 15 years. I am a cat lover, but I would hope that we prosecute violence against humans with the same outrage.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Yes, but whether the object of the violence is human or animal, there is additional matter of the psychological cruelty to the human who cares for the animal or human victim. The physical victim often dies quickly, but the psychological victim is left to live with the horrible memory and feelings of guilt for not having been able to stop it. People who like to torture other people by proxy, by killing pets or people they love, have a really dangerous mental disorder. Remember the guy a few months ago who forced some of his children to beat their sibling to death? Would the siblings really have been harmed less if their father had forced them, under credible threat of fatal harm to themselves, to beat the family's loving, loyal dog to death?