The purpose of the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (PACT) is to strengthen the 2010 law that makes the depiction of animal cruelty a crime, but allows the cruelty itself to go unpunished.
The 2010 law made it a crime to create or distribute a video that depicts “non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians” being “intentionally crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury,” provided that such video is “obscene,” and provided the creation or distribution is done in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce.
PACT makes it a federal crime for “any person to intentionally engage in animal crushing if the animals or animal crushing is in, substantially affects, or uses a means or facility of, interstate or foreign commerce.”
PACT does not rewrite the 2010 law and is limited to interstate commerce and federal property.
PACT also does not interfere with state cruelty laws and would not preempt or interfere with local animal cruelty laws or enforcement.
At the very least it is refreshing to find something we all agree on, even if it's as obvious as preventing or punishing animal abuse.
Cruelty to animals is now a federal crime under a new law signed by President Trump on Monday. The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (PACT) is a bipartisan initiative that bans the intentional crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impalement or other serious harm to "living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians." The law also bans any photograph, motion picture film, video or digital recording or electronic image that depicts animal cruelty. The penalty for violating the law can include a fine, a prison term of up to seven years or both.
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/25/782842651/trump-signs-law-making-cruelty-to-animals-a-federal-crime
unknownx500
