Re: NANFA-- possible NY legislation to criminalize wild pet trade

Jeffrey Fullerton (tcmajorr_at_westol.com)
Wed, 11 Jul 2001 00:40:10 -0400

> The Impact.
> AB 7375/SB 4755 provide that "no person shall possess, harbor, sell,
> barter, transfer, exchange or import any wild animal for use as a pet in
> New York State.' Wild animals are defined for purposes of this prohibition
> as "any live animal that is wild by nature, whether bred in the wild or in
> captivity and whether or not native to New York State.'
>
The goosestepping prohibitionists are at it again!

Shades of Maryland HB961 in 1993 banning virtually all carnivorous
animals from snakes to oscars (anything that fed on live vertebrates).
It as instigated by a lady whose kid got agitated over a pet shop
feeding live rodents to a snake. Oh well, snakes have to eat and so do
those who make a living from the pet trade.

Luckily Maryland's reptile hobbyists pulled together and killed the
legislation in committee. Hopefully New Yorkers will do the same.

In the event they loose the fight there always remains the option of
civil disobedience. They can't arrest everyone in the state who has fish
or exotic critters and the black market pet trade will flourish and more
power to them! Or hobbyists may vote with their feet and leave the
state. Only problem is that the way these laws are proliferating that
will be a temporary bid at best. - Hey too bad pet hobbyists and other
persons sick and tired of these unproductive parasites and those who are
out to make the world safe for whatever- were to all move into an out of
the way place like that Swami and his followers did in a little Oregon
town called Antelope and just take over by swamping the electorate. Or
better yet : a third party that favors individual liberties sweeps a
whole state and trounces the existing political machines. Then privatize
all the services and start repealing laws that infringe on the liberties
and livelyhoods of people for the sake of soothing the rightious
indignations of special interests.

Maybe someone ought to introduce legislation to criminalize the creeping
criminalization of our culture which is at present an omenous threat to
individual freedom in this country. Already for the sake of sureing up a
foundering effort to fight drug trafficking , legal authorities are
asking, in some cases demanding unprescidented leeway to invade our
homes and violate our financial privacy. Please tell me this didn't pass
- a few years ago I heard that a state - either Delaware or New Jersey
was trying to pass legislation that would allow health inspectors to
enter private dwellings and inspect for violations of state health
codes. That's definitely a giant leap on the way to a police state and
it literally would open doors for many other agencies give the ease of
sharing information these days. If they see fish or turtles while in
there, they could easily report you to the DNR or animal control
authorities!

Now that in my opion sounds like grounds for lock and load! A major
reason for not making a career of military life was to get away from
that kind of thing that goes with life in government quarters. God
forbid we ever get to that level of militarization of civilian life - a
level even the WWII generation would consider unacceptable.

The prospect of stopping and turning this trend around is actually
doable over the mid to long term. It would be best to aim for a solution
at the state level because state governments as soveriegn units in many
cases have more impact on our hobby than federal authorities, yet closer
to the grass roots and do not have the resources to dip into like the
federal government has. Starting at the bottom always works more
effectively than at the top. The first state to break with
authoritarianism will become an economic powerhouse and a really nice
place to live. More people will want to move there and other states
fearful of loosing human resources will likely follow suit. Remember the
ominous "Domino Effect" the politicians used to fret about during the
Cold War era? Well now it will be the spread of freedom many of the same
politicians (the old dinosaurs who are still around) will be fretting
about!

Of course I'm getting ahead of things a bit.
In the more near term it's more a matter of monkeywrenching the system
to limit the damage these people can do until we can turn things around.
You can do that by either writting letters and calling up people on
these committees to express opposition. Also tax cuts are effective
tools for undermining the system so it can't enforce these laws. If they
go in the red they are less likely to have the resources to track down
every illicit pet owner!

Sorry for endorsing civil disobedience but there are some laws that like
Rodney Dangerfield deserve no respect. Especially when they are
implemented by sneaking then in thru the back door and putting them on
the "Fast Track" so they get passed before anyone else impacted by them
can respond. Especially when they apply to activities that are just
morally offensive to special interests or tyrannical majorities as
opposed to harmful to people or the environment. That is essentially
what the agenda of the animal rights movement is all about. You will
note numerous references to snakes and "dangerous" animals. This is a
common ploy by animal rights groups to scare the public into supporting
them. They claim to love animals but it's not beneath them to appeal to
fear or human prejudices against certain groups such as reptiles -
namely snakes and large lizards.

Another near term solution that works - STOP VOTING FOR POLITICIANS WHO
SPONSOR OR SUPPORT SUCH LEGISLATION! AND STOP GIVING TO GROUPS THAT ARE
LOBBYING TO OUTLAW OUR HOBBY!
Why feed them any more than necessary. Or feed them at all for that
matter.

Something to sleep on.

Jeff

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