If this Anti-Trapping petition gets 100,000 signatures in 30 days

[G_j]

If this Anti-Trapping petition gets 100,000 signatures in 30 days the Obama administration will have to address it. Please consider signing and sharing. Thank you!

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/ban-trapping-america-all-other-civilized-countries-have-already-done-based-cruelty-and-torture/4vhVGVbz

[Sekhmets Daughter]

1. Done. Thanks. n/t

[Xithras]

2. No can do.

I don't support trapping, but there's no way to constitutionally do this. Hunting is regulated at a state level because it's not a "commerce" activity and lies outside of federal jurisdiction. The federal government could conceivably ban trapping on BLM land and in national forests (it's already illegal in national parks), but there is a zero percent chance of a national anti-trapping law surviving court challenge.

That's the downside of living in a federal republic.

[G_j]

3. so then can states make cruelty to animals legal?

just sayin'..

[hack89]

4. Yes they can

Last edited Thu Jan 31, 2013, 02:37 PM - Edit history (1)

they shouldn't but they can. Humans have the Constitution which allows the Federal government to intervene to ensure states respects Constitutional rights. Animals have no legally recognized universal rights.

[Xithras]

5. Err....yes they could, if they wanted.

There is no federal law prohibiting cruelty to animals that don't also involve interstate transport. There are laws protecting farm animals as they are transported and sold across state lines, and there are laws that make the interstate transport of fighting animals illegal, but there are no federal laws governing the welfare of non-farm animals within the boundaries of the individual states. Torturing a pet to death is perfectly legal under federal law. It's an illegal and prosecutable offense because all 50 states have passed laws making it illegal. Any one of those states could repeal those laws and theoretically make animal cruelty legal any time they wanted, though I don't think I've ever even heard anyone advocate for doing it.

We passed Prop 4 here in California back in the late 1990's which made it illegal to use any body-contact trap or poison to "hunt" anywhere in the state. Everything from nooses to leg-hold traps were banned by the law. Unfortunately, with the way our nation is structured, this is the only way to prohibit these things. You have to push it state by state.