It’s well established that malicious animal cruelty indicates a broader social pathology and lack of empathy, and the perpetrators often are indiscriminate in choosing victims – one day it’s a dog or a horse, another day it’s a neighborhood child or just some innocent passerby. Media reports revealed that days before the recent mass shooting in a Louisiana movie theater, the suspect bragged about bashing a cat “on the head with a piece of rebar,” and ranted about his desire to drug sick pets and “finish them off with an ax.”
A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill today called on their colleagues in Congress to pass the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, to help keep animals and people safe in our communities.
S. 1831 and H.R. 2293, sponsored by Senators Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Representatives Lamar Smith, R-Tex., Ted Deutch, D-Fla., Tom Marino, R-Pa., and Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., would establish a federal crime for extreme acts of animal cruelty when they occur in interstate or foreign commerce. It would complement the federal animal fighting and crush video statutes and the felony cruelty laws in all 50 states.
As Senator Toomey said today, “There should be no tolerance in our society for this kind of behavior, and it’s our job as legislators to ensure that the laws that we pass reflect the values of our society. So I think there’s a strong moral obligation to protect innocent animals from such appalling cruelty.”
Congressman Smith, former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, added that these acts of animal cruelty are “more horrific than almost anything imaginable.”
There is already a federal ban on the trade in obscene video depictions of live animals being crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or subjected to other forms of heinous cruelty in perverse “snuff” films, which was recently upheld on appeal. But while the images and video depictions of cruelty are illegal under federal law, the underlying conduct of the cruelty itself is not.
The PACT Act would close this gap in the law, and also provide prosecutors with a valuable additional tool when animal cruelty is occurring in a federal facility or in interstate commerce. For example, federal prosecutors would be empowered to take legal action on malicious cruelty to animals on federal property or in a federal building, or if they found it in the course of investigating another interstate crime (say, in pursuing a drug smuggling or human trafficking ring).
As we’ve seen with animal fighting, the state and federal laws are complementary and provide the widest set of tools to crack down on that brutal bloodsport and its associated criminal activities. Some animal fighting raids are multi-state and multi-jurisdictional, and sometimes the perpetrators are charged under state law, or federal law, or both.
With animal cruelty, too, most cases can be handled under the existing state statutes. The federal law wouldn’t interfere with those of the states but would provide an additional overlay when necessary.
The National Sheriffs’ Association is backing the PACT Act, and its deputy executive director, John Thompson, said in advocating for the bill, “We need our federal partners and federal prosecutors to stand with us at the local level and have some horse power, which they don’t have now.”
Senator Blumenthal, who previously served as a federal prosecutor and state attorney general, said today, “We are really measured in our society by how we treat animals. It says something about us as human beings.”
The PACT Act will make our communities safer for both human and animal residents. Please ask your members of Congress to cosponsor the PACT Act today.
