Should Smoking Around Pets Be Made Illegal…?
This seems to be taking things a bit far. First of all, in the final analysis, animals are legally property. They can be acquired at any time, and the owner has the absolute right to kill them at any time (even eat them for dinner if he so chooses, as many do with their pet pigs). The only proscription is that animals may not be cruelly neglected, nor may wanton cruelty be influcted upon them. (Animal cruelty laws are much older than most people imagine, being passed in the 1860-70s as part of a campaign for moral improvement. In fact, the first person ever prosecuted for beating his child in New York was prosecuted under the laws against cruelty to animals, since a law against child cruelty did not yet exist (the state legislature of course passed one next year) This does not, however, alter the animal’s place as property. It would be difficult to argue that smoking around an animal constitutes malicious and wonton cruelty, when the person themselves is also inhaling the smoke! With c
