Can you tell if someone is a right-wing nutjob just by their actions and appearance?

[mwb970]

Dog killer jailed on probation violation
(Columbus Dispatch, August 25, 2010)

A former Columbus firefighter who served a 90-day jail sentence last year for killing his dogs to avoid boarding them was sent back to jail yesterday for violating his probation. David P. Santuomo, 44, of Fall Water Court on the Northwest Side, will spend 30 days in jail after Franklin County Municipal Judge Harland H. Hale found that he hasn't complied with most of the terms of his probation. "My intention is to get your attention," Hale told Santuomo.

Santuomo pleaded guilty in June 2009 to two counts of animal cruelty and one count of possession of a criminal tool for taping a 2-liter plastic bottle to a rifle as a makeshift silencer and shooting his two dogs in his basement. Investigators said he killed the dogs so that he didn't have to pay to board them while he vacationed with his girlfriend.

Hale sentenced Santuomo to 18 months in jail and suspended all but 90 days if he complied with his probation. Assistant County Prosecutor Heather Robinson said Santuomo has yet to make a payment toward the $4,500 in restitution that Hale ordered and has performed only eight of the 200 hours of community service imposed by the judge.

She said he also hasn't sought treatment ordered for emotional and alcohol-abuse problems. Although he was ordered by the judge not to drink, Santuomo was charged Aug. 6 with drunken driving, Municipal Court records show. Santuomo said he has been unemployed since he was fired from his firefighting job after the conviction and is behind on rent and child-support payments.

"It feels like I've gone from crisis to crisis," he told the judge.

[stray cat]

1. I know of mass murdering progressives

[mwb970]

9. I'm surprised to see the familiar false equivalency here on DU.

"Both sides do it." Riiight. In what proportion, Charlie?

[dkf]

2. I feel sorry for his kid.

[oneshooter]

3. No more than you can tell a left wing nut job, using the same criteria. n/t

[mwb970]

8. Oh come on. Left-wing nut jobs do not shoot their dogs in cold blood.

See my post downthread for the truth about Santuomo's politics.

[Lasher]

4. What's the difference when a vet euthanizes unwanted pets?

Maybe he could have found somebody to give the dogs to and I hate it because they were killed. But should this man's life have been ruined for something that vets do legally every day?

[Javaman]

6. That is some odd logic there.

While I support no kill facilities and have volunteered at many of them.

Most of the time, the animals that are put down by the vet are of the older variety that no one, sadly, wishes to adopt. Overcrowding is a massive problem at many no kill shelters.

Having been present at a few of these "put downs", I can tell you it is done with the least amount of pain and with the utmost amount of humanity.

Believe me, no one in that room enjoys nor wants to put any of this creatures down.

However, this asshole shot two dogs in cold blood, with out the use of drugs to put the dogs down. All so this asshole can go off to screw his gf on vacation.

I have yet to meet a vet who enjoys putting down animals, but this asshole reeks of being a sociopath.

[Lasher]

12. You have cited no meaningful difference.

A gunshot to the head, if properly applied, can be as humane as any method used to dispatch these unfortunate creatures - and perhaps more so that any other method you could reasonably devise. If properly done as I said, they would literally never hear the shot, and would feel no pain or fear whatever. Consider, this way the animal would not have to go through that traumatic trip to the vet's to spend his final moments being injected with drugs by unfamiliar people among strange animals.

Good on you for having volunteered your time to help these animals. But that does not give you and your friends exclusive domain on, or superior claim to, the virtue of compassion.

The rest of your argument is manufactured from whole cloth. There is nothing in the article that indicates he enjoyed killing these animals "in cold blood", or that they suffered more than (or even as much as) the creatures subjected to the "put downs" you witnessed, or that he is a sociopath.

Some people react illogically in cases like this because they don't like guns, and have a conception that shooting an animal is always a terrible thing. But at times like this, don't you think we should put the animal's best interests first and our own preferences last? I do.

Sorry for rambling, but I wish you would think about that. Back to the question I raised, just going by the information presented in the article, I see no justification for the harsh punishment David Santuomo received for doing something that vets routinely do.

[Javaman]

13. Have you done volunteer work at vets, animal hospitals or shelters?

I have extensive experience with such and your argument falls flat. For those of us that actually had to deal directly with the euthanasia of animals know full well of the gravity of the situation.

and by you equating a gun shot to the head via a home made silencer of a bottle of water to a peaceful transition via a sedative as no difference, is to say ridiculous.

While I champion animal rights and choose no kill over euthanasia, sometimes there is no other recourse, especially when you have sick and diseased animals or animals that are so grossly abused that is impossible for them to make the transition to homes or animals that aren't adopted due to age (sadly they are the best ones to adopt in my opinion).

I make nothing from whole cloth. What this guy did was a calculated move. He chose to make a homemade silencer so no one could hear the shot.

He knew perfectly well what he was doing. He chose not to house his pets at a shelter due to cost. But didn't have an issue spending the money to go on vacation.

When you actually have to sit and make the choice over which animals live and which ones die due to over crowding, get back to me then, because it is an incredibly heart wrenching discussion that you have evidently no idea what that is like.

Until we have a proper spay and neuter program nationally, nothing will changed and animals will have to be put down due to over crowding of the shelters.

[Lasher]

17. I see.

I'm sorry I wasted your time.

You cannot pour more tea into a full cup. - Zen proverb

[Javaman]

18. and your cup is empty. nt

[Arkansas Granny]

5. I don't see anything in this article that tells me what his political leanings might be.

Also, I might deplore his reasons and methods of disposing of unwanted pets, but what's the difference in shooting an animal or taking it to the vet for euthanasia? Is the cruelty based on the method? It's a shame that animals are put down just for convenience, but either way, they are dead. I think in this case the punishment is far too harsh for the crime.

[mwb970]

7. You don't think he sounds like a right-winger?

If this guy voted for Obama and watches Rachel Maddow every night, I'll eat my hard drive.

Doing a little digging just now, I turned up Santuomo on meetup.com, on the waiting list for the "Republican Liberty Caucus" meetups. Here's the entry:

David Santuomo

Interested in new Meetup Groups about:

Republican Liberty Caucus, Adventurers, Swing Dancing, Italian Language, Free State Project, Capitalist, Ayn Rand, Bob Barr, Libertarian

(See it at http://rlc.meetup.com/members/us/oh/columbus/.)

Gee, looks like I was right. DUH!!

[Arkansas Granny]

11. The original question was could you tell "just by their actions and appearance".

The info you turned up was not in the article you referenced.

No need to "DUH!!".

[mwb970]

16. Sorry to "duh" you!

But, the actions I was referring to were the killing of the dogs to facilitate the vacation with the girlfriend. It seemed selfish, heartless, and cruel to me, and involved a gun, so I guess it put me in mind of certain people on the right (cough*cheney*cough).

Also, the guy's "look" reminded me of Glenn Beck. So, I leaped to a conclusion.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

10. Physical appearance, NO. Actions can be indicators.

Cruelty like this, I'd file under "Moderately increases probability of RWness. Need more data."

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. No, and from what he did

I cannot tell he is a right wing nutjob either.

Sorry, animal cruelty don't make a right winger or a left winger, but somebody who has a few mental issues.

Now that is somebody I do not necessarily want in the FD, but that is for OTHER reasons.

Jesus age when you start telling that any political view is a mental condition you do a disservice to the actual, fer real, MENTALLY ILL.

Oh and BOTH sides do this... see Savage... er I mean Weiner, Liberalism is a mental disorder.

[uncommon]

15. Jesus that is a messed up story. Most people who look homeschooled

seem to be RWers...

:dilemma: