I don't know. I am glad I live in a country where the law is based on justice and not revenge or mob mentality.

I feel it should be comparable to the penalty for doing the same to children. Animals are equally helpless and equally capable of suffering. Besides, if a person an inflict harm on animals for pleasure, who can say that they won't hurt people too?

I think people should realize that most animals descend from pure and simple wilderness roots, even cats and dogs. It doesn't take much to break the bond with man, not only is animal abuse able to break this bond, but so is neglect and other things which I guess essentially fall into the same category. But that's also a problem. Maybe keeping your cat indoors and preventing it from following whatever its instinct tells it to do is making it suffer for the rest of its life. I love my cats and hate thinking about that. But they're not neutered or have their claws cut. If they run away, at least they're still real cats who can defend themselves. Animals aren't as easily understood as we'd like to think. If you think animal abuse should be punished, then I think neutering your cat should be punished as well. Anyone here would like their balls chopped off? Your cat isn't the same after that. It's subjective but, instead of punishing cruelty to animals, we should try and fix the problem which creates animal abuse and neglect in the first place. It's not easy and nobody will invest in that, but like, people should use common sense. Animals can be very happy with humans, but if you know you won't take care of it or will be hurting it...why get one? And a lot of people know how they feel, I just wonder why they get the animal with no intention of enjoying it? It can be anything though...like slaughtering cattle for food. We need food and I want my meat, but we can also all agree that it's pretty excessive, right? Maybe MacDonald's should be punished...either way, it's hard for me to think of an answer without bringing up the details that revolve around it. A lot of people should be punished, but then people will always be punished, because it seems we decided how animals should live and react, while their nature suggests something else entirely. So since I'd fail as president of animal rights, yes animal cruelty should be dealt with. It is in some places, with fines and stuff-but that usually has to do with the safety of a neighbourhood when looking at stray dogs-so it's pretty hopeless. Animals will always suffer. But know that they can bite back. :)