Animal Cruelty Laws In The United States

As people go throughout their day, they often times will come across topics that are easily able to be argued over. Everyone is their own person, and as a result of this, everyone has their own opinion. The topics could range from which shoe brand is better, all the way to wether they think the current bill that is in senate should be passed or not. From political topics to topics as simple as brands, everyone has something that they can take a stand on and argue about. One topic that can easily be argued over is animal cruelty laws. However, the clear correct side of this is that the laws should be stricter and have more severe punishments.
In New York animal cruelty laws are nowhere near as harsh as compared to laws for humans. Mistreatment
of an animal is punishable by no more that 1 year in prison and/or a fine at the max of $1,000. This is considered to be a simple misdemeanor. Many animal cases do not even get taken to court, and the animals receive no justice. If someone was to find an animal on the street that had been obviously intentionally harmed, little to no justice could be served. Numerous street animals are victims to the cruel intentions of heartless teenages. There have been a multitude of cases in which teenages torture and intentionally kill animals that they find on the streets, and most of them never get caught.
Even if the animal has an owner, and the owner takes the guilty person to court, they will receive nowhere near as much compensation as they would if it was a human who got injured. As a result of this, many owners do not bother taking the guilty person to court, and their animal receives no justice. For example, if someone’s neighbor got annoyed with their dog or cat, and they decided to throw rocks at said dog or cat, and the rocks were to hit them in the head, causing a fatal head wound, the owner would be left with two choices. They could take their neighbor to court, and present their case. This would most likely result in the neighbor having to pay a fine that could go towards the vet bills. However, there is no promise that they will be required to cover the full vet bill. The second choice would be to simply not go to court for the fact that they do not want to waste the time and money that it would take to do so.
Another reason why animal abuse should be taken more seriously is because the people doing these cruel acts could easily turn around and do them to humans.
If someone would purposely harm a small innocent puppy, what would they do to a human? If someone starves their pet and deprives them of life essentials, what about their children? If these types of people had children, they could just as easily deprive them too. Most people do not look at animal cruelty cases like this. They do not realize that not only are they harming animals, but they could also be harming other humans just as well. When an animal case is looked it, it is basically glanced over, with little in depth inquiry.
Despite all of these facts that clearly show that animal cruelty laws should be stricter, there are a few points for the other side as well. Not everyone is an animal lover, and the well being of an animal on the streets, they feel is none of their concern. Some people consider their pets as family, but in the end they are animals. A large amount of people feel as if animals are just animals, and that animal lives are not nearly as important as human lives. These points are very miniscule, however, and the reasons on why the laws should be stricter outweigh them
greatly. Everyone has topics that they can argue over. Animal cruelty is just one out of very many. The stronger side, the right side of that argument is that animal cruelty laws should be stricter. Animals receive little to no justice during cruelty cases, especially street animals. Even if they pet owner takes the guilty person to court, they will have little resolution. The life of a pet should not be payable by a simple small fine. Animals deserve more rights, and the punishment for intentionally harming an animal should be much stricter than it is right now.