A Bill To Cage Animal Rights Terrorists

Earlier this summer animal rights terrorists targeted University of California at Los Angeles researcher Lynn Fairbanks. "On the night of June 30, we paid a visit to Lynn Fairbanks' home," read a communique posted on the North American Animal Liberation website. The "visit" was a bomb. It turns out that the activists planted the explosive device at the wrong house (at the home of 70-year old woman) and fortunately it fizzled.

Another UCLA primate researcher Dario Ringach, whose family had been threatened by would-be animal liberators, sent them an email in August reading, in part: "You win. Effective immediately, I am no longer doing animal research."

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) is proposing legislation in response to these and other instances "to crack down on animal rights activists who make threats or commit violence against people engaged in research using animals."

The Chronicle continues:

The bill, which the Democrat introduced with Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, would toughen federal criminal penalties for causing physical harm to people or making threats to researchers or their families. It would also boost penalties for causing economic harm to companies or universities engaged in research using animals that are frequently destroyed in the course of lab work.

Proposed penalties in the bill, which is a modification of legislation Inhofe had previously offered, include life in prison for incidents in which someone is killed.

A lot of laboratory animals are used to test possible therapies before they are tested on people. Such tests are far from perfect, but they are the best we can do until newer assays are developed. Also animal research can tell us a lot about ourselves.

"The deplorable actions of these eco-terrorists threaten to impede important medical progress in California and across the country," Feinstein said in a statement Friday. She's right and when they are caught they should be caged.