Police: Man beheads tame hotel duck

[Ban Hammer 13,346]

I don't condone what the guy did, but only because of the setting and because he is a drunk idiot.

Slitting the throat of an animal, cutting it's head off, smacking it with a cleaver to stun it or chop it up for sushi while live, or steaming something live are all prepping and cooking techniques.

That duck didn't suffer if it's head was snapped quick. I'd fine the guy and make him work in an animal shelter for a few hundred hours and have him seek treatment for alcoholism.

but isn't that kinda like putting the fox in the henhouse?

Not if they order him to clean out the lion's den at a nearby zoo... with the lion's still in their den...

not quite the same as an animal shelter......

[Caladan 19]

How would you feel then if I were to come and slaughter your family pet and then defend myself by saying that people eat cats and dogs in parts of Asia so it's okay?

Like I said in my first post on this topic, if you can kill, maim or inflict pain on an animal for fun then you have the capability to do the same to humans. Psychologists have done tests to prove this theory hence the fact that it is a punishable crime in law.

You're going to come to my house, kill my cat, and then abuse me with non-sequiturs? Heaven forfend. Read again what I wrote: I believe the guy should be punished, but I think jail time is excessive. Especially since if the guy is a Hannibal Lector in training, I'm sure he's going to learn the milk of human kindness in prison.

Psychologists have found a link between lack of empathy towards animals and the ability to kill human beings. But note that's not the same as just killing an animal. We don't arrest hunters or bug exterminators or people who work in slaughterhouses.

So he'd have to be killing the duck for fun. I'm not so sure that's what's going on here, because it really looks to me like a drunk guy not wondering (if the ducks are still screaming, Clarice) how best to cause an animal pain but making a joke and picking up a duck by its head. The traditional (and humane) way of killing a fowl is to snap its neck, but I don't think the guy even meant to do that.

So basically, we have ducks whose heads do not stay on well and drunk guys trying to pick them up by their heads.

that's downplaying it just a bit, don't you think?

The article's kind of short, but I think it's mostly attributable to a drunk guy rather than a malicious duck predator. He wasn't looking obviously violent or creepy before he killed the duck. Security didn't even notice him until he killed the duck.

But yes, I'm downplaying it to the extent that I think a jail sentence would be ridiculous and life in prison over a duck pretty laughable.

[Mags 112]

life without parole

Life without parole? For being drunk and killing a duck?

Sometimes it seems to me like people care more about animals than people.

Actually, I DO care more about animals than humans, especially rather stupid humans like the fellow in this story. Give me a cat ANY DAY.

a duck-head-ripper-offer guy

Jenn, that made me lol

Me too.

[DeadPoolX 9]

While I think that biting the head off a live domesticated duck is excessive, so is acting as if the man who did this committed a triple-homicide (with a possible rape thrown in for "good measure") and convicting him that way. Make no mistake, I think he should get some sort of punishment -- perhaps community service, a very large fine, and maybe even a few nights in jail (not prison; they are very different), but not spend years in a maximum security lockup.

The point is... it was a duck. As someone else said in this thread, people eat ducks. We also hunt ducks for food and sport. We do none of the above with humans. Ducks are animals, and while they do have the right to live without their "heads being torn off," they do not have the same rights to life as a human being does. Maybe some people might find that "wrong" or "cruel," but that's how it is. If you feel that strongly about it, appeal the current set of laws and attempt to change them, making animals equal in the eyes of the law to humans.

Once again, I am not advocating animal cruelty. I think what this man did was horrible and wrong. But this man does not deserve the same sort of sentence as Jeffrey Dahmer did. The circumstances and victims of the crime are very different.

Edited September 24, 2007 by DeadPoolX