Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Sen. Kilby Reconsiders Dog Laws

I received an email from 12th District Senator Tommy Kilby yesterday in response to my complaints over a bill he introduced to make it a crime to own a certain type of dog in Tennessee. The online and offline furor that bill prompted was mentioned previously and in this post too.

He wrote about withdrawing his original bill, and filing a new one, though there are still some issues to resolve:

"
Here is an update on my proposed legislation. I withdrew the original proposed legislation, Senate Bill 2738 and filed a caption bill, Senate Bill 3827. Unfortunately, due to the bill filing deadline, the second bill's wording mirrors the first, which has caused some confusion. Take heart though, the caption bill will be amended so as not to be breed specific."

Here's to hoping any new laws are based in more realistic concepts.

First and foremost for me is specific and significant legal avenues to place accountability on those people who fail to contain any animal they own and allow an attack on a human. It would make no sense to arrest and destroy a gun used in a killing - punishing the owner/user is the typical approach. Likewise, one could do a survey and find a particular model of a car as the most commonly involved in a fatal crash, but arresting the car and banning ownership of that model isn't the right concept either.

FROM DOGS TO DUCKS UPDATE: Worth noting that Kilby is not seeking re-election, so this is really a lame duck term for him. A prime contender for his replacement is Becky Ruppe, Morgan County's first female elected County Executive, and as R. Neal notes, she has launched her election campaign website.

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