A Grayslake-area man accused of shooting a stray dog outside his house in January has been sentenced to 20 months in prison.
Now, I'm all for strict sentencing for gun violence and I love animals as much as the next guy, but this is ridiculous. Unless this guy has a long history of misusing his firearms, I say the jail time is excessive. He qualifies for my one-strike-your-out rule, but that should be it.
What's your opinion? Isn't the judge being a bit melodramatic in saying the crime "is not easily forgiven by society?"
Please leave a comment.
What's the penalty for maliciously running over a dog in a Buick?
ReplyDeleteSame outcome, right? What's the difference?
Ridiculous sentence. He would get much less for killing a pedestrian while under the influence.
ReplyDeleteThe animal rights whackos are really coming out of the woodwork lately.
It's easily forgiven by this member of society.
ReplyDeleteStray dogs may or may not be a menace, depending upon how they're acting at that moment. But, one dog more or less, does anyone really care or notice, except the Korean fast food place on the corner?
OK, so we agree on the prison sentence being too much. Does your silence on the other thing indicate assent? One strike you're out. Shoot a dog in the street when you shouldn't and you forfeit the guns for life.
ReplyDeleteBefore you say anything, consider this. We need to raise the bar. Too many gun owners are acting badly. How else can we increase the quality of the entire pool if we don't weed out the trouble makers? And what better way to weed them out than by using my one strike you're out policy.
Too many? You haven't even reached one percent of gun owners acting badly.
ReplyDeleteYou've got an incident here, a workplace shooting there. And while all of the deaths are sad and regrettable, none of them are the fault of the gun owners that don't break the law. So, why punish them because less than one percent of the gun owning population does cause problems?
As to whether the guy should lose his rights over shooting a dog, I would think that even you would see how stupid that is. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, he ought to be told, "Don't do that, here's a ticket for the mess you made." The $50 fine could be used to pay the schlep who had to hose the blood off the street.
If the dog's owner want's to complain, they get a ticket too, for letting their dog wander around without a leash or supervision.