President Trump signs Animal Cruelty Bill into federal law punishable by 7 years in prison
U.S. President Donald Trump recently signed a bipartisan bill that makes specific acts of animal cruelty a federal felony.
He added that it is important for the nation to combat “heinous and sadistic acts of cruelty.”
The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (PACT) forbids extreme cruelty towards animals, including suffocating, intentional crushing, impalement, drowning, burning, carried out against “living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians,” as per National Public Radio.
Regardless of the fact that animal cruelty is a crime all across the U.S., activists believe the latest law will make it easier for the government to prosecute abusers.
The bill signed by Trump makes such offenses punishable by up to seven years in prison, a fine or both.
The bill powers up a 2010 law called the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act, which made it a federal crime to create and distribute videos showing extreme acts of animal cruelty. The PACT builds a bridge for the law by letting federal authorities hold individuals accountable for filming or distributing content featuring crushing or torturing animals, according to The Humane Society.
Great job @realDonaldTrump and @LaraLeaTrump!
Donald Trump signs animal cruelty bill targeting 'heinous and sadistic' animal 'crush' videos | Daily Mail Online https://t.co/Uz3kb9XbWv
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) November 26, 2019
Representatives Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., and Ted Deutch, D-Fla., introduced the initiation to the House, as per NPR. Patrick J, Toomey, R-Pa., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, told the Hartford Courant they joined forces to push the bill through the Senate and into Trump’s office.
“The barbaric torture of animals has no place in a civilized society and should be a crime — and thanks to this new law, now it is,” Blumenthal told the newspaper.
Holly Gann from the Animal Wellness Foundation told the Associated Press that the new bill will in effect “better protect some of the most vulnerable among us.”
“PACT makes a statement about American values. Animals are deserving of protection at the highest level,” Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, said in a statement. “The approval of this measure by the Congress and the president marks a new era in the codification of kindness to animals within federal law.”
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