On Oct 20, 2011, at 12:15 AM, John Francis wrote: > On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 04:50:38PM -0700, Joseph McAllister wrote: >> Chilled me somewhat too. But I understand the parameters under which >> decisions had to be made. >> >> The blame lies, in my mind, entirely with the owner, >> for not thinking any further out of his mind than his own state. > > Well, there's also the viewpoint that it should be necessary to get > a permit (with real, hard-to-answer qualification questions) before > being allowed to house that many wild animals on your property. > > I understand that this comes up fair and square against the doctrine > of removing excessive government regulation of private individuals. >
When my wife was in the Missouri legislature, the son of one of her constituents was bitten by a monkey that had escaped from it's cage at the house next door. The son became infected with some exotic disease which led to extensive and expensive hospital time (with eventual full recovery). The monkey's owner and/or their insurance company eventually provided financial compensation, but the constituents nevertheless enlisted Meg in a mini-crusade to strengthen the licensing requirements for owning exotic animals and clarifying owner's liability in the event that harm was caused by such an animal. The legislation did not get far, there was a huge backlash from conservatives who pointed out that the Bible said that they had dominion over beasts of the field etc. and they didn't need no government telling them what they could own or what they could or should do with the animals they owned. The same constellation of attitudes that maintains Missouri as the nation's premier spot for puppy mills. stan -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
