A bill that'd make malicious acts of animal cruelty a federal felony was recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The bipartisan Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (PACT) provides federal authorities with a new set of tools to crack down on suspected animal abusers that move across state lines. The bill expands on a previous law that outlawed the creation and distribution of animal abuse videos that are “obscene” in nature but did not expressly prohibit violence toward animals. The PACT Act intends to close this loophole.
71% of #domesticviolence victims said their abuser also attacked their pets, but did you know that cruelty against animals is NOT a federal offense? Today we voted to change that by passing the #PACTAct! pic.twitter.com/CngjbP0g5j
— Chellie Pingree (@chelliepingree) October 22, 2019
The bill was drafted by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) and Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) In February 2019, a bipartisan group of senators introduced this Senate companion to the bill.
As a fact sheet from Deutch’s office reports, this law would make it a severe federal crime for anyone “to intentionally engage” in the “crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating [and] impaling” of animals, together with any other acts of intentional animal cruelty toward non-human mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians.
The law wouldn't get in the way of existing local legislation against animal cruelty.
Here is how people reacted:
COMMENTS