Do you think animals that injure humans should be destroyed?

Ooooooooooooooooooooh

Harsher than what?

Some animals that cannot be rehabilitated should not be a part of society. Should ALL animals who injure a human be destroyed? No.

People (of normal intelligence) always know better, so they should be destroyed for hurting animals. Animals are just animals who don't know any better, and in most cases it is a person's fault when they are hurt by animals (not all the time though). Does that answer your question?

You just said people should be executed for hurting animals.

You also said it is the person's fault whan animals hurt a person---but sometimes not.

I have no idea what you said or mean.

Animal abuse in general is wrong because society says so. There is more human abuse---humans abused by humans than there are animals abused by humans. We need to solve the human abuse first---and animal abuse will get much less prevalent.

According to the CDC, 90% of dog attacks are provoked or otherwise people being stupid (leaving children unattended with dogs, etc). Therefore, it is the person's (the provoker or the idiot who leaves their child alone with an animal) fault the dog attacked.

I don't think I could be any clearer that people who abuse animals should be killed. I'm sorry you didn't understand my original statement. Animal abusers are sorry excuses for human beings, obviously without conscience, and cannot be trusted to not hurt people. Animal abuse is wrong because abuse is wrong, not having anything to do with what society says. In certain segments of society, animal abuse is encouraged (dog fighting for example). That doesn't make it right, just because that part of society says so.

You have the link between animal abuse and human abuse backward. If people who abuse animals were stopped, then they wouldn't be able to "move up" to abusing or even killing people. It is well-documented that human abusers and serial killers often got their training by abusing animals first. If we severerly prosecuted or executed these people, HUMAN abuse would decrease.

Meghan is 100% right, Jeffrey Dahmer and most other serial killers started out with animals. There is tons of info out there re. animal abuse eventually leading to human abuse. People who abuse animals are abnormal and should be weeded out. Those of you who are constantly spouting about your qualifications and knowledge as breeders have mentioned the fact that responsible breeders must cull undesirable examples of the individual breeds, often by euthanasia. The same should apply to humans too. Anyone who derives enjoyment from abusing and/or killing weaker creatures, be they two-legged or four-legged, should be disposed of.

Wow - this is scary.

Who gets to write the laws? Who will do the disposing? Who gets to say what constitutes abuse and what constitutes neglect? I feel that people who neglect their animals are abusing their animals. Should all people who neglect their animals be put to death? If you don't treat your animals the exact same way that I treat my animals, are you a bad pet owner? Should I get to say that you shouldn't exist because we don't agree?

I agree with handymac - let's address the human abuse issue. It is a known fact that children who are abused can grow up to be abusers -- of both humans and animals. Let's work on fixing our social problems, not "getting rid" of people. If we truly are at top of the intelligence chain, we need to fix from the top down.

I was always of the opinion people who maintained only their views were the correct ones were just as antisocial as the serial killers---just not yet lawbreakers.

I am neither hawk nor dove, right nor left---but I believe there is good on both sides. Unfortunately, that means there is also bad on both sides----and that bad is usually really, really bad.

The people I am referring to are the sickos who derive pleasure from torturing/killing animals (and, in many cases, move onto humans). The types of people who cannot be rehabilitated. People who neglect their animals often do so out of ignorance, because they were raised with only outside pets, or taught that pets are not worth medical care, etc. They can be educated and change their ways. But someone who enjoys torturing/killing is in an entirely different league, as far as I am concerned, and poses a great danger not only to animals, but also to people. Jeffrey Dahmer and others like him end up dead anyway, why let them do so much damage on the way??

So, how do you propose to set up a system to determine which people fit your catagory? And whom is to be the determining judge? And how does one determine how brutal a person is?

I understand your frustration, but some things cannot be prevented. This area is one of those.

I don't know the answer to that, but I do agree the enforcment and implementation of such laws would be hard, if not impossible. I guess there is no solution.

I think the O.P.'s question is too broad to address. State laws vary, so punishment differs greatly from state to state. Some may be too lax, others just right.

Also, as sheltiemom pointed out, abuse needs to be defined to answer this question. I feel keeping zoo animals alone in a small cage, keeping large marine animals in a tank, and the methods we use to raise and slaughter farm animals to all be forms of abuse, yet they are all legal and accepted by our society.

As to what should be addressed first, animal or human abuse, I think as a society we need to work towards a total lack of tolerance for any form of abuse. Instead, we hear so many horrific stories these days we've all become desensitized to much of it, or we allow some things to go on because we know it isn't the worst problem we have. An example of that is seen here where people are suggesting that we not focus on animal abuse until we fix human abuse. All abuse goes hand in hand.

There is the problem of funding and manpower for any program. Where are the funds and the manpower coming from for the reduction of abuse coming from---and which area gets targeted first or most? If I were to contirbute $100 to fight child abuse and it was used for animal cruelty prevention, I might get mad enough to hit the idiot who misdirected those dollars.

We here in this discussion cannot agree on a course of action, how is a larger effort going to fare?

Plus, humans have an inbred instinct of flight or fight, just as animals do---plus an inherent fear of strangers of our own kind. Wolves do not allow strange wolves into their pack and they fight for territorial supremacy.

We cannot simply ignore those instincts and make people get along. Nor can we make people stop abusing others or things---or even themselves.