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Next step of action for S373

repti-racks

repti-racks

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The next step to fight this Bill S373 is to contact you local state senator with an in person meeting or if thats not possiable contact them and voice your feelings about S373.

We need more people involved in this fight and to become a member to USARK for future battles that need to be addressed.As stated before their are thousands of members in differant forums and web sites such as fauna and kingsnake we need to join in even if you dont own reptiles or if its not the reptile species that effects you at this current time. Keep getting NEWS media involved, the more we as a reptile nation come up in news, talk radio etc the more its going to sink in were not backing down. Todays hearing dosnt mean stop we have to keep going foward.
 
I am gonna tack on something related to your post.

With faxing still- whom do we fax? Since this is going to th enext level, should there be new representatives and sch we need to fax? I am kinda thinking the old ones wold be kinda pointless since it passed this initial vote.... if anyone knows, please let me know.

I agree, this has to go to the next step!
 
I would contact your state senators and the representative that represents your district. They will have to vote on this bill, and they need to know that this is yet another issue that you, as a voter, are concerned about.
 
Go visit your state representative with one of your ball pythons or boas. Take a stack of your feeding or breeding cards. Etc.

Show them this is your livelihood AND there's nothing scary about them. Then have a rational conversation about how this ban is not warranted. (And if you are in the colder states, point out that "investation" is impossible because your snakes wouldn't even survive the winters).
 
All it takes is one hysterical staffer and the rep will never listen to you.

Do NOT take Any animal uninvited into a place of employment. I have had employees that were scared of all animals no matter how small or harmless, they have the right to not be subjected to animals in their work place.

Plus if you're in a colder state you're stressing your snake and isn't part of the point to say that cold kills?

Make prior arrangements and/or bring pictures.
 
Good points. I said that sort of tongue and cheek but you are right that showing up with a snake is not a good idea. :)
 
One big problem i feel we have is getting the attention of all the members everywhere. Fauna alone has over 61,000 members but yet on the site of open congress their were only over 500 who voted. Im sure KS has alot more members too. My opinion i think in order to get more aware is each site sends out an e-mails to all members and stop the web sites for 1 day and have info on their front page only about whats going on and what to do this will wake up everyone and realize their is a problem that needs everyones att and their is no time to sit back and hope it will pass.

Just my 2 cents
 
I do definatly plan to talk with my representative, but I feel that a lone isnt enough.

After chating with other people in a chat room, I came to the conclusion that I am really gonna hound freinds and co workers and family members to join in in the faxing. Bless my mom's heart- she hates snakes and she sent emails! if only I can get other peoples permission to fax in their name.

See, I plan on doing all the work- gonna get an account with myfax.com and do the faxing via email- I just need their permission. This way, they can't use the excuse that they dont have time and yadda yadda yadda.

It just seems so hard to get other people involved if it don't concern them- they have no reptiles what-so-ever. But I feel if we don't get non-reptile people involved as well, we may fall short.

The only thing I know is I ain't going down without a fight!

Thankyous for the more info and the insight on this. If anyone else has more suggestions, please speak up so we all can do our very best to work together and take appropriate action.

Janet
 
Even if you don't keep pythons yourself, the simple fact of the matter is that yet another freedom is about to be taken from you. That should be enough to get any reasonable person fired up over this...
 
Also, be extremely careful how you word your arguments. Despite common belief, owning a pet or any animal is not a "right", it's a privilege. There is no "right" to pet ownership in the Bill of Rights, Constitution, or Amendments. A lawyer or politician will laugh at you. Besides, it's a weak argument.

If you want to defend your privilege to own reptiles, you must present yourself as knowledgeable in conservation issues and the proper, responsible care of these animals. Present your arguments logically and rationally. Do not fall into the easy trap of extremist activism.

The advice given by other people in this thread is well founded. I suggest people use this advice when contacting their senators.

In addition, the reptile community needs to be centralized. Join a paid membership lobby group, such as USARK (United States Association of Reptile Keepers). Do NOT give money to the Humane Society. They are an extremist left-wing political group like PETA. I think this is fairly obvious considering their recent campaigns.
 
I think "owning" a pet is a right. Its the right to property. We could take this all the way back to the civil war. The confederates argued that there property would be taken away if they freed the slaves. So if they banned owning an animal it would be taking away property which would be unconstitutional. Im not sure if im right but thats what i know if im wrong someone correct me please
 
redmetal said:
I think "owning" a pet is a right. Its the right to property. We could take this all the way back to the civil war. The confederates argued that there property would be taken away if they freed the slaves. So if they banned owning an animal it would be taking away property which would be unconstitutional. Im not sure if im right but thats what i know if im wrong someone correct me please
Click to expand...


The south lost.
 
I don't know about that. They probably argued it because they were 1) worried that freed slaves would start buying property and 2) without slaves, there wasn't cheap labor available to work the huge cotton, rice, and other plantations. Slavery is very different from our current situation, since slavery truly does have to deal with the violation of basic human rights guaranteed to us by our Constitution.

We have the right to own property, true, but then what about eminent domain? The government can seize private property to build bridges, roads, divert rivers, etc., so is any property truly private? This gets into a very long legal debate that I'd rather avoid, but reptilian pets do not fall under this category because they are not domesticated animals or what we consider to be livestock. Alligator farms are a bit different since they do provide meat and leather, but I think it's fairly obvious that our geckos, snakes, etc. wouldn't be harvested to provide material goods to society.

The government holds wildlife in public domain, and our reptiles can legally be considered non-native wildlife. As such, the government does have the ability to remove our privilege to own these animals. We just need to convince them that they're overreacting to a sensationalized 'nationwide threat' of invasive exotic snakes. I mean, more people are killed by horses in a single month than by reptiles in an entire year (I'm making this up, but I would presume it's true...horses are dangerous animals). We need to convince politicians that the perceived threat is far greater than the actual threat.
 
yes the south did lose but that was not the point. The reason they let the slaves free is because the northerners felt slavery was unconstitutional and should be abolished President Lincoln was against doing this for almost half of the civil war because he wanted to keep the south in the Union. Even so i brung this up not to have a debate on slavery or anything i wanted to bring up the note of you cant take property without due process or something like that. I could break my history book out and find where it talks about it but yea i just felt like throwing it out there.
 
In the city next to me they wiped out an entire neighborhood despite protests through eminent domain.

Due process is laughable.

The Lacey Act isn't supposed to be controlled by politicians in the first place, it's supposed to take intense study by scientists before a species is even proposed for inclusion on it.

Politicians threw due process out the door the second they started this.
 
Just letting thoughts happen, and this one popped in....
I wonder, if push comes to shove, whether a viable legal argument could be made to exclude morphs. Our snakes are categorized as wildlife by their definition; but many, if not most, of the morphs are significantly different from what would ordinarily be found in nature (even if that is where many of them initially came from, lol).
I'm not advocating a ban on normals - that would be ridiculous - but, it just seems that there should be some way to drag this down on a technicality (aside from the basic one that Congress is bypassing due scientific process and trying to create Federal legislation on something that isn't even a national problem. :ack2: )
 
hhmoore said:
Just letting thoughts happen, and this one popped in....
I wonder, if push comes to shove, whether a viable legal argument could be made to exclude morphs. Our snakes are categorized as wildlife by their definition; but many, if not most, of the morphs are significantly different from what would ordinarily be found in nature (even if that is where many of them initially came from, lol).
I'm not advocating a ban on normals - that would be ridiculous - but, it just seems that there should be some way to drag this down on a technicality (aside from the basic one that Congress is bypassing due scientific process and trying to create Federal legislation on something that isn't even a national problem. :ack2: )
Click to expand...

I'd pony up some cash for a civil lawsuit/challenge for that.

Aside from the fact that state specific issues shouldn't have federal laws but be dealt with by the state (ie,quaker parrots infesting New York, they're not on the Lacey Act) that's why the 10th amendment allegedly exists.
 
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