The bill would ban the use of the
cruel gas chamber, ban the excruciatingly painful method of killing by heart sticking, prohibit shelters
from killing animals when there are empty cages, make it illegal to kill animals when rescue groups are willing to save them, and end the practice of killing «
owner surrendered» animals within minutes of arrival without ever giving them a chance at adoption.
Whoever overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, cruelly beats, mutilates or kills an animal, or causes or procures an animal to be overdriven, overloaded, driven when overloaded, overworked, tortured, tormented, deprived of necessary sustenance, cruelly beaten, mutilated or killed; and whoever uses in a
cruel or inhuman manner in a race, game, or contest, or in training therefor, as lure or bait a live animal, except an animal if used as lure or bait in fishing; and whoever, having the charge or custody of an animal, either as
owner or otherwise, inflicts unnecessary cruelty upon it, or unnecessarily fails to provide it with proper food, drink, shelter, sanitary environment, or protection
from the weather, and whoever, as
owner, possessor, or person having the charge or custody of an animal, cruelly drives or works it when unfit for labor, or willfully abandons it, or carries it or causes it to be carried in or upon a vehicle, or otherwise, in an unnecessarily
cruel or inhuman manner or in a way and manner which might endanger the animal carried thereon, or knowingly and willfully authorizes or permits it to be subjected to unnecessary torture, suffering or cruelty of any kind shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 7 years in state prison or imprisonment in the house of correction for not more than 21/2 years or by a fine of not more than $ 5,000 or by both fine and imprisonment; provided, however, that a second or subsequent offense shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 10 years or by a fine of not more than $ 10,000 or by both such fine and imprisonment.
As part of their labor series, their documentation has covered the
cruel conditions of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a former slave - breeding plantation named for the African nation
from which «the most profitable» slaves, according to slave
owners, were kidnapped.