NH House bill to ban killing any animal w/o "lawful authority?"

[DadaOrwell]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OcizqaMgMK8

Under the wording of the bill, it appears anyone who...

"(g) Without lawful authority intentionally takes the life of any animal."

...would be considered guilty of animal cruelty. I suspect this could be interpreted to mean you couldn't shoot a wild animal to protect a pet, but maybe I'm missing something.

Your thoughts?

 

[Tiktock]

That cannot be true, but I haven't seen the bill. What about mousetraps?

 

[doobie]

What about mousetraps?

You are a murderer; go directly to jail, lose your evil black toys (shiny ones too), and do not collect $200.

 

[Tiktock]

Do humans fall under "animals?" or are they changing the scientific definition for this law

 

[strangenh]

This concerned me, but on looking at 644:8 as a whole, one finds right at the top:

II. In this section, ""animal'' means a domestic animal, a household pet or a wild animal in captivity.

http://law.justia.com/newhampshire/codes/nhtoc-lxii/644-8.html'

Ergo, you can still kill ants and termites, set traps for mice, stop wild animals threatening domestic ones, and otherwise kill wild pests that presently are not otherwise illegal to kill.

The REAL issue is the replacement of "worrying" with "wounding" in RSA 466:28, which will require a person to wait until some dog on the loose actually has latched onto his sheep and wounded it before acting, rather than (as has been the case) acting while it's chasing it down. Thus, under the proposed law, two animals would likely die rather than one.

 

[MarkM]

In future please post the bill number so those of us who don't want to watch a video can read about it ourselves. Thanks.

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2008/HB1314.html

 

[MarkM]

Status: IN COMMITTEE
Status Date: Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Current Comm: ENVIRONMENT AND AGRICULTURE
Comm of Referral: ENVIRONMENT AND AGRICULTURE
Date Intro: Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Next/Last Hearing Date:

Committee E&A
Date 1/24/2008
Time 10:30:00 AM
Place LOB 303

 

[strangenh]

I have just written my county's rep on the committee, explaining my opposition, based in particular on the first part of the bill which (with a one-word change to existing law) would require waiting until an attacking dog has drawn blood before one may act to stop the attack with deadly force. The proposed bill sets a standard (waiting for an attacking dog to draw blood before one may act decisively to stop the attack) that is inconsistent with historical and existing NH law, and indeed with basic ethics.

 

[strangenh]

I sent a fairly long discussion of the problems with the bill (particularly the first section of it) to Rep. O'Connell, who is my local rep on the Env & Ag committee. Here is the response I received from Rep. O'Connell:

"I am quite optimistic that this bill will be rejected in committee and before the full NH House."

 

[MarkM]

I sent a fairly long discussion of the problems with the bill (particularly the first section of it) to Rep. O'Connell, who is my local rep on the Env & Ag committee. Here is the response I received from Rep. O'Connell:

"I am quite optimistic that this bill will be rejected in committee and before the full NH House."

That's good news.

If the bill does make it out of committee I will be sure to write all my representatives asking them to vote against it.

 

[DadaOrwell]

most bills do die but there's no point in letting them breathe while we have the ability to strangle them....