I am about as pro-gun as any person can be so I consider it appalling that people in the UK have been stripped of their right to protect their life and property.  Criminals don’t abide by laws so the gun-carrying thief breaking into somebody’s home in the UK must feel pretty confident about his chances; he knows that the odds are in his favor that any opposition he encounters is going to be unarmed.  If a UK citizen owned a gun in defiance of the law and used it against the thief he would be in as much (or more) trouble as the robber.  In the UK, they would both be considered criminals.  I find this to be very, very sad:  defend your family and your property and become a criminal for doing so.  Rest assured that if that same guy broke into my house here in Virginia he would have a six-pack of Coke can sized exit wounds in his back.

But how did guns become illegal in the UK?  Was it done in one fell swoop?  Nope.  It was done in stages, a tactic often used to disarm (literally in this case) the opposing voices.  Despite my pro-gun position I didn’t sit down to write about gun control.  I continue to be concerned with the fate of reptile ownership in the United States.  But the history of gun control in the UK serves as a excellent timeline that illustrates our likely fate unless we get our act together in very short order.  Here’s how things went down in the UK:

• 1988 -  In the wake of the “Hungerford Massacre” the Firearms (Amendment) Act of 1988 was passed.  This law made it illegal to own semi-automatic rifles, pump-action rifles and military weapons that shoot explosives.  The law also implemented registration requirements and a requirement for “secure storage” of allowed shotguns.  Handguns (pistols) were not impacted at all by this law.
• 1997 – In the wake of the “Dublane Massacre” ownership of almost all handguns was banned.  One of the key selling points of the law was that a very limited number of people would be impacted (fewer than 1 in 1,000).
• 2006 – The Violent Crime Reduction Act was passed and this made it illegal to buy/sell air weapons by mail order.  This includes things like Airsoft guns.  Yep, in the UK it is even illegal to own a fake gun because it looks too much like a real gun.  Hilarious.  Tragic.  Sad.

The path from there to here was implemented through a simple concept:  divide and conquer.  In the late 1980′s UK pistol owners were apathetic about the proposed ban on rifles because it didn’t affect them.  “Why should I care if they ban shotguns?”, they said.  “I only keep pistols and bolt-action rifles.”  In an act of self-preservation they stayed silent, letting their rifle-owning neighbors have their rights extracted through the legislative process.  Those same people who thought they were safe found their rights removed less than a decade later.  The politicians who pushed this law through the UK’s legal system were smart to leave pistol owners out of the fight in 1988.  Attacking the whole gun-owning population of the UK would have been tantamount to the Humane Society of the United States trying to make pet dogs illegal in the wake of an escaped Nile Monitor killing someone’s Terrier.  Patient and resolute the anti-gun movement capitalized on high-profile tragedies to further their agenda.  Baby steps.  Little-by-little they got it done.  And look at the UK now…

Now let’s turn our attention to things here in the USA.  Large constrictors are under attack.  Most of us know that.  And many bearded dragon breeders, ball python breeders, corn snake breeders and leopard gecko breeders could care less.  Why?  Because they don’t keep large constrictors, of course.  That should sound eerily similar to the same apathetic mindset held by UK pistol owners back in 1988.  And look what happened to them less than a decade later.  Every time there is an isolated incident in the exotic animal community the anti-pet movement gains a little more traction to push through another limiting piece of legislation.  Whether it is done state-by-state, the Lacey Act or through the federal law making process, they are as patient and as resolute as the anti-gun zealots in the UK were.

I know how the end of reptile ownership is going to happen.  If we continue on our current path it will mirror what happened in the UK.  The voices of opposition in the UK screamed, “you can’t legislate a madman”, meaning that a ban on firearms would not stop the next massacre from happening.  If someone wants to get a gun and go on a shooting spree it will happen.  No law is going to prevent that.  My screams as a reptile owner have been of a similar vein.  I oppose any legal limitations on the rights of responsible pet owners.  No matter how responsible a pet owner I am there will always be someone out there who is not.  That person will do something stupid and my rights will be removed as a result.

But why?  Why do the actions of a few lead to restrictions on the many?  The answer is simple:  Legislation is a bludgeon tool.  It lacks finesse.  Laws have not, can not and will not deal with subtlety and nuance.  They are a widely cast net that frequently catches huge numbers of unintended victims.  I have already heard it said.  “Our inspectors are not trained tell the difference between a Burmese python and a Boa Constrictor so the most simple course of action is to ban them both.”  If that’s the case then how would a local law enforcement official tell the difference between a blood python and a burmese python?  Simple: He can’t.  Well, we better ban blood pythons too …just to be safe.  And when the time comes to ban ball pythons you can rest assured that Angolan pythons will be thrown out with them.  They look too similar.  And so it will happen; our compartmentalized herpetocultural community will fall in small group after small group.  And each group will remain silent as the others are attacked.  It will probably take the next decade or two to happen but the writing is on the wall.  The anti-pet movement is more than ready to wait us out and I have not seen evidence of the community having the stomach for a long fight.

Is there an alternative to legislation?  Yes!  It’s called self-regulation.  And this is where there is a fundamental divide within society.  Proponents of large government believe that it is the government’s responsibility to take action to provide for and protect its citizens.  Supporters of small government believe that protection is indeed the government’s responsibility but ‘providing’ is the realm of private industry and government should stay out of it.  The government should not regulate the commercial interaction between provider and consumer.  In a system of self-regulation the industry controls itself from within; it’s a commercial ecosystem that has its balance upset when the dirty fingers of legislation are inserted.  Whether we are talking about banking, exotic animals or pharmaceuticals the concept is the same; the industry regulates itself and acts in a responsible manner, no government intervention needed.  In the end the consumer is the real regulator because it is only where there is mutual benefit in a transaction that the transaction can take place.  Even though I would rather not pay $130/month for my iPhone I still do because I find value in the trade.  If my iPhone bill were to double to $260 I would no longer see the value and I would discontinue my service.  The provider is always going to push the edge of course; they are a for-profit entity and will always work to get as much as they possibly can without pushing me past the limits of my perceived value.  In this delicate balance between consumer and provider we don’t need the government to come in and control mobile phone price plans.  Doing so screws up the natural balance of commerce.

When an industry fails to self-regulate it provides a powerful foothold for the supporters of government regulation (banking and health care come to mind here).  And that is where we are today in the reptile world.  There is no shortage of idiocy in the reptile trade.  Someone out there is not securely keeping their reticulated python or rhino viper.  Another guy is selling Burmese pythons and eyelash vipers to 14-year old kids at a trade show.  And let’s not forget the guy who is keeping hundreds of snakes in horrible filth with no food, water or climate control.  None of these people are you, right?  Of course not.  It always seems to be someone else that is screwing things up for the hobby.  The problem is that the consumer:provider mechanism for self-regulation is seemingly absent.  The only thing an individual can do is take care of his/her own business; keep their animals secure, well-fed, watered and in a suitable climate.  They cannot control what another keeper is doing.  This appears to suggest that government regulation is a viable solution, doesn’t it?  Without changing what we do as a community, the answer, unfortunately is ‘yes’.  The ability to own a reptile in the United States will not survive if we stay on our current path.

But how do we self-regulate?  This is a tough question.  As a person purchasing a green anaconda I know what my responsibilities are.  But what about the seller?  It would seem like a no-brainer to say that a person would not sell a baby anaconda to a minor but that has been proved wrong more than once.  Should the seller take steps to make sure the person buying is fully prepared to responsibly undertake the long-term ownership of the animal?  Is that realistic?  No, it’s not.  The retail community doesn’t support it.  If I put somebody through a gauntlet of questions before selling them a green anaconda at a trade show they are just going to go to another table and buy it from the wholesaler who picked up a 20-lot of them earlier that day and could care about nothing other than their method of payment.  The long-term impact:  I am not economically viable and another person owns a green anaconda that is doomed to get sick and die …but not before it escapes a few times because he thinks that putting a book on the screen top of his aquarium is going to keep the snake from pushing its way out.  Because the community is unable to regulate itself it is primed and ready for government intervention.

Reptile community self-regulation seems viable only if there is widespread individual self-regulation and this illustrates the “you can’t regulate a madman” problem.  The reptile community is too large and too diverse in both number and intelligence for there to be any realistic chance to self-regulate.  Aside from “lock in a sock” forms of keeper-on-keeper physical violence I don’t know what the answer is.  But I do know that if things don’t change we are going to start losing our rights at an ever-increasing rate.  And the only people we can truly blame when its over will be ourselves.

Cheers,

Colin Weaver

I am not too unlike you, I suspect.  I have received the emails, read the blogs, followed the forum threads and participated in the related chatter.  Been there.  Done that.  And yes, I even got a t-shirt.

Like many of you I have repeatedly railed against the unrelenting stream of assaults on reptile ownership.  My passion for my position has, to my knowledge, not swayed a single opponent or politician.  As is so often the case parties on opposite sides of a debate are uninterested in truly listening to and understanding the differing view.  But that makes sense, doesn’t it?  You don’t typically pick a side you know to be wrong and the more involved you become in the campaign to forward your beliefs the less capable you are of changing your stance.  Despite all the rhetoric and supposed evidence presented by each side, nobody is swayed from their original position.  From my perspective proponents of a ban on reptiles are misguided and misinformed fear-mongers suffering from bad cases of self-serving political, environmental and animal extremism.  Those same people look at me as an environmentally insensitive, unscientific animal exploiter who puts the needs of the environment and public health second to my own wish to have unusual pets.  On the surface one might say the only common ground we share is that both sides want reptiles left alone.  Unfortunately, that common ground doesn’t translate into a foothold for agreement as we have incredibly different definitions of what it means to ‘leave reptiles alone’.

Because an agreement springing forth from common ground is not likely to happen both sides have turned heavily to science to further their assertions.  Sadly, this so-called science is based more on personal, organizational and political agendas than factual analysis.  Science, when stirred into the twisted brew of politics, loses its impartiality.  Similar to the frequent abuse of statistics, the numbers representing scientific fact are skewed to support biased-positions.  What individuals deem true is nothing more than “scientific results” that support their original beliefs.  Campaign contributions and party affiliation go a long way toward determining what is regarded as scientific truth.  Opposing ‘science’ is always denounced as fraudulent and misinformed. For every expert you find that will attest to your desired stance you can rest assured that the opposing side will find not less than one to supplant their professional assertions. The sad reality:  the scientist who is right is the one with the most politicians on his side.

It has long been the reptile keeper’s concern that politics will eventually trump real science.  Many people like me who have been keeping and breeding reptiles for decades know very well the conditions in which they will survive and our continued existence offers evidence as to how dangerous they are to “public health”.  Surprisingly, we didn’t need to earn a doctorate in herpetology, epidemiology, immunology, virology or even meteorology to know these things as fact.  But practical experience has always taken a back seat to academia.  And why not?  Professional reptile breeders have no parchment with calligraphy honouring them as such.  We hold no impressive reptilian job title and have no particular herpetocultural alma mater to trumpet.  Our experiences, insights and perspectives are relevant only to our peers and not to the outside world (especially to politicians).  The media, interested only in sound bites, shock value and visceral reactions, does us no favours either.  Almost without fail reptiles are portrayed as sinister creatures, each one calculating and hostile toward humans.  The Discovery channel would have the general public believe that they are being hunted by corn snakes while they sleep.

The reptile community places little faith in politicians and government scientists to perform an honest assessment of the facts.  We live in a world where special interest groups and party affiliations define votes.  Expressions of individual thought and dissent from the party ranks is a sure-fire way to be banished within your own political party and, in the end, to avoid re-election. It has become commonplace for politicians to march in step with the wishes of the leaders of their respective parties; an honest sense of accountability to the constituents they represent (and to The People as a whole) is a vanishing memory. This is a truth recognized by almost everybody on any side of any particular debate.  In all of the recent legislative efforts against ownership of reptiles you can almost draw a line down the center of the party isles.  The Democrats tend to be in favor of “animal rights” legislation while Republicans seem to stand in opposition.  The politics of politics makes if difficult for any Senator or House Delegate to go against their party position without internal repercussion.  Notice how the politicians are not answering to or representing the interests of their constituents?  It’s the other members of their party (and their financial supporters) to whom they show loyalty.  I am the 3,215,978th person to write it:  the system is broken.  And with reptiles on the radar I am once again reminded of and disgusted by how this broken system can cause my loss of liberty.

With the looming decision whether to amend the Lacey Act to include nine (9) different snakes (by their latin name) the reptile community is fighting potential disaster; the elimination of a large and important portion of the reptile trade.  The buzz in the reptile community is that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has told Fish & Wildlife, whose leadership reports to Mr. Salazar, to add all nine snake species to the Lacey Act regardless of what the science reveals.  The unspoken message to The People:  “Facts are not relevant.  Science is secondary.  The federal government will decide what you can and cannot own.  The personal crusades of political figures, lobby groups and political affiliations are insurmountable trump cards.”  I pray for this to be false but the behavior of our government of late does not give me hope.  If true, my distended disenfranchisement with our federal government will likely burst and become something more malevolent.  My disappointment in the bureaucratic machine, once a matter of casual disdain, will become something dark and seething.

Through all of this we, the reptile keepers of America, have felt emotions like denial, anger and even depression.  It has occurred to me that the range of emotions many of us are feeling (and have felt) are similar to those of people who are diagnosed with a terminal illness or experience a catastrophic loss in their lives.  The often debated Kübler-Ross model of how humans handle grief says there are five (5) stages people go through when handling a traumatic and tragic event in their lives.  They are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Denial

I have been there for the denial. I have both lived it and observed it in others. For years I thought that reptiles were too small a concern to attract the attention of politicians and animal extremists. I was wrong.  Pet owners and breeders like me used to say that they will never be able to ban these animals.  In the early days we misunderstood the vigilance of our opponents.  Denial should be long gone. The world the reptile keeper lives in today is a never-ending barrage on multiple fronts. We are attacked through the courts, through the legislature and through state and federal agencies. If one assault fails to make sufficient headway they simply come at us from another angle. We are reeling, always defending, and as we tire of the omnipresent initiatives to remove our rights we become even easier to to attack the next time. Using current strategies I seriously doubt the reptile community has the mettle to sustain the fight.  For the most part the community has coalesced (in principle only) but it is still almost always on the defensive.  The side that spends all of its time defending is destined to lose.  The principle of ‘live and let live’ does not apply here.  The people who think they know better than you how your life should be lived are never going to stop trying to control you.

Our attackers do not need a kill-shot; they are perfectly content to grind away at the rights of reptile owners.  They will do it slowly, one species at a time, if they have to. Which of the following scenarios seems most likely to you?:

• A complete ban the ownership of reptiles in the United States today or;
• A long-term strategy to gradually eliminate the ownership of certain types of snakes (with most/all being the long-term goal), the installation of complex and expensive permit systems that discourages many from attempting ownership, and laws that greatly reduce the numbers of animals a breeder can keep (thereby reducing production and profitability) as well as laws that put increasing levels of liability on reptile sellers.  The evidence of this type of approach is already visible.  One need only examine the laws passed against Tennessee dog breeders in 2009.

Consider some aspects of the game of football as an analogy; the team that can effectively run the ball, getting 4+ yards each play will wear the defense down.  Time and fatigue will cause the defenders to fail and the score will eventually become insurmountably lopsided.  And, from time-to-time, the side on the offensive will go deep on a play-action pass (2009′s H.R. 669, for example).  Anyone who watches sports knows that it is hard to score when you’re always on the defensive.

So yes, denial is long gone.  The increased popularity of reptiles has landed them squarely on the radar of the anti-pet movement.

Setting aside the obviously diverse opinions the country has on the outcome of the 2010 mid-term elections we should all be able to agree that it is was positive for responsible pet owners.  Now that the Democratic party (who is most in favor of legislation that eliminates the rights of pet owners) is no longer in control of the House of Representatives you can expect to see the HSUS and other organizations to redirect their efforts away from Congress.  You should expect them to return with greater frequency to the courts and city/state governments to push their agenda.  They never left these venues but you can expect them to re-double their efforts now that they have lost their captive audience at the federal level.  Unfortunately, this does not stop the current efforts to amend the Lacey Act.  That train still speeds out of control.

Anger

Being angry is easy when other people try to take away your rights, especially when they try to do it by presenting lies and falsehood as truth.  While anger is energizing it is not conducive to clarity of thought.  In moments of anger we cannot think clearly and we are prone to irrational and inappropriate actions.  The HSUS, through a calm and relentless onslaught of lies, is counting on many things to further their agenda, including their opponents to lose their cool and get angry.  Angry people are easier to control and even easier to make look foolish.  Angry people can be poked and prodded to provoke the reactions that support their opponent’s stance.

Being angry is fine.  But in this type of fight it’s not OK to let it control your actions.  Our anger needs to be used to strengthen our resolve and to keep us energized.

Bargaining

When your position feels shaky you begin to negotiate.  This is often true even when you believe your position to be correct and just.  Somebody once said that the only real guarantee in a compromise is that both sides will leave dissatisfied.  And when the HSUS is dissatisfied they will find a new way to attack pet ownership.  It’s part of their strategy.  Take a little bit every time and eventually they will have taken a lot.  The barrage of efforts to limit, constrain and eliminate reptile ownership has been unrelenting since January 2008 when a Democratic President took office.  With the House, the Senate and the Oval Office all in-step it unlocked the animal extremist flood gates and the reptile community has been reeling ever since.  In January 2008 the reptile community suddenly found itself face-to-face with a government whose majority was supportive of animal and environmental extremism.  The anti-pet groups came out in full-force and showed us their prowess for working the political system.  Standing in the shadow of such opposition can shake your resolve.  Feeling that defeat is a real possibility people sometimes begin to bargain, to negotiate.

I heard the discussions all through the reptile world.  “We’ve got to give them something!” was an all-too-frequent chorus.  Give them Burmese pythons and they’ll leave us alone.  No, actually, they won’t.  It sickened my stomach every time someone said something so short-sighted.  In the battle for large snake ownership some people and groups were open to the idea of a ban on Burmese pythons.  In an astonishingly short amount of time the community went from lamenting the plight of the Burmese python to fighting for African Rock pythons and Reticulated pythons as well.  Today, less than two years later, we are faced with losing nine species in the pet trade including boa constrictor. And listing boa constrictor by such a generic scientific name is nothing short of horrifying as there are a ton of subspecies that will be guilty by association.

I have never supported and will never support a bargain that eliminates any reptile species from the trade.  I will not give up retics, burms, anacondas, scrubs or boas …and I don’t even own any of them!  As far as I’m concerned those animals are part of our reptile-keeping culture and I fully support their responsible ownership.  I can not and do not support any political philosophy that legislates to the lowest common denominator of a society or sub-group of society.  Legislating all reptile ownership in order to remedy the actions of a few who make bad choices is an asinine way of leading people.  I’ll stop there as I sense that I am digressing into a political tirade.

Depression

Endurance requires training.  Along the way you become tired and worn down.  With no end in sight to this fight for pet owners rights you see nothing but an endless road ahead.  Faced with that reality it’s easy to see how depression can set in.

“Can’t this all just go away?”, you ask.  Sorry, no.  Right or wrong, the rights of pet owners are intricately entangled in larger issues such as global warming, energy, foreign trade, animal rights, interstate commerce, and separation of power between the states and the federal government.  In some ways, reptiles are nothing more than a pawn in those larger games of chess.  Victories that limit the ownership and transport of reptiles in the name of protecting the environment are little more than tick marks in the column for or against even more environmental legislation.  It is a solid measure of hubris to think that the issue of reptiles is important enough to warrant this much attention.

When depression sets in you lose your passion.  As more and more us lose our passion for the fight we are coming closer and closer to the end of the reptile trade.

Acceptance

At last:  minus one.

I, and hundreds of thousands like me, will never accept an agenda tantamount to a cancer.  The Humane Society of the United States is a malignant lesion, a growth of sickness and malevolence in our society.  Their message is decaying and vicious.  It preys on the apathetic minds of well-intentioned individuals.  People who love animals as I do are presented with an onslaught of lies and misinformation that sour them to the true nature of pet ownership in our society.  These misinformed individuals, in an effort to help the animals they love, give their money to an organization that actually hates them.  Love dogs?  Me, too.  The HSUS thinks they love them, too.  But the HSUS loves dogs the way that a psychotically  jealous and abusive husband loves his wife.  He loves her so much that he feels justified in killing her rather than letting anyone else have and hold her.  “I love you so much I am going to kill you!  I have to do it.  It’s the only way I can protect you from the others!”, he says.  “Psycho!  Monster!”, you scream at his confession.  The HSUS is the same type of abusive monster.  But to the bewilderment of millions, people send them money when they present their lie-tainted agenda.  With the honest sincerity of a silver-tongued sociopath they hypnotise you with their lies.  Snap out of it!  It is time to stop believing in and financially supporting their hate.

It is because I see the HSUS for what they are that I will never stop fighting against them.  I will vote for candidates that disagree with HSUS’ agenda.  I will educate my friends, my family and my co-workers on the nature of their lies and I will campaign for votes to put politicians in office who see as I do.

Vigilance, poise and intelligence are our most valuable assets in this fight.  This assault is not going to end any time soon.  As long as the HSUS (and other like them) is still in business there is not a pet owner or animal business in this country that is safe.  I do not accept a life without the animals I choose.  I will not allow my liberty to be taken from me.

The plight of the reptile industry is a caricature of our nation as a whole.  The federal government, guided by the invisible strings of special interest groups, is seeking to remove the rights of responsible Americans because there is a small subset that can’t follow common-sense rules.  Rather than holding the few accountable, all are made to suffer.  The many suffer at the hands of the few and the rules are designed and enforced to the lowest common denominators of our society (gun control laws, social security & health care come to mind).  Tearing down the responsible to address the needs of the irresponsible is a path that leads nowhere other than failure.

As I finish writing all of this I fear I may be screaming at the deaf.  Reptile folk listen and nod.  They even occasionally applaud.  But I doubt most will act.  The well water is muddy; we have gone to it too many times and too often.  Evidence supporting this assertion can be found in popular Internet forums.  Visit your favorite forum and look at the Laws and Regulations section.  Find the posts that deal with impending legislation/regulation and make note of how many times it has been read.  Now visit one of the sections that deals with lighter topics and see how often otherwise inane discussions are read and commented upon.  Posts where people ask if their latest craigslist acquisition is a morph can have a thousand hits and hundreds of responses.  Post a picture of a never before produced designer morph and you can get a few thousand views in a few short days.  But post information about the fate of the community itself  and people’s hyperlinks don’t change color.  Many of us are too busy “polishing the brass on the titanic” to give attention to what’s really important.

This is not a fight you have to fight as an individual.  But you do have to participate.  It’s a painful reality but it comes with the territory in today’s landscape of pet ownership.  We all have to be prepared to give our voice, our pen, our money and our vote to support our rights as responsible pet owners.  PIJAC and USARK are the two best allies the reptile owner has.  If you can’t or won’t financially contribute to one, consider the other.  If you don’t give them money, give them your voice.  If they ask you to make a phone call or write a letter, do it.  It takes such a small amount of time.  If you don’t you have knowingly ceded the fight and passed through into Acceptance.

Regards,

Colin Weaver

Fellow pet owner,

My name is Colin Weaver.  I am 37 years old.  I am probably a lot like you in that I have had a dog and/or a cat as part of my family for all but a tiny handful of years in my life.  My current dog, a 4-year old Weimaraner named Seven, is not just a pet; she is a member of my family.  Taking care of her and protecting her is no less a responsibility than taking care of my 3-year old daughter.

In addition to being a dog lover I am also an enthusiastic reptile fan.  In particular I have an affinity for pythons.  This fact, I suspect, will immediately distance some of you.  Pythons are not conventional pets and because pythons are enigmatic they are often feared.  Despite their fast-growing popularity, they are on the edge of mainstream pet ownership.  It is true that reptiles do not show the same affection toward their owners that dogs and cats do.  The opposite, however, is not true.  The way you feel about your dog or cat is the way that many feel about their reptiles.  For the moment I ask that you not judge the particular animal that some choose to make a part of their lives.  For now, just focus on the way you feel about your pets and give credit to reptile owners for feeling the same way about their companions.

In the United States dog ownership is under constant attack.  The source of this attack is most commonly the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).  Volumes have been written on the Internet about their deceptive ways but they continue to be successful in launching attacks against pet owners (and breeders) around the country.  I know your frustration regarding this because I feel it, too.  Dogs are only one of several targets of the HSUS.  Reptile keepers are also struggling with the HSUS’ powerful lobbying skills.  At this moment there is a bill in Congress called HR2811 which seeks a nationwide ban on many of the most popular reptiles in the pet community (the Senate version of the bill is called S373).  At a recent hearing in the House a team of more than 25 HSUS members were present to forward their efforts to get this bill made into law.

The reasons proposed for this ban are false.  They are being sensationalized by the HSUS and this is being compounded by the media.  South Florida does have a problem with a population of pythons having established themselves in the Everglades.  This problem, which is isolated to extreme South Florida is being used as a point of leverage to ban the ownership of pythons and boas throughout the entire United States.  There are two primary points of the HSUS argument:

1.The HSUS and USGS feel that the python might be able to spread north from Florida and establish itself in the lower 1/3 of the United States.

• Because pythons cannot control their own body temperature this is simply not possible.  Highly experienced reptile veterinarians with detailed understanding of reptile physiology have testified to this fact.  The ecosystem of South Florida is largely unique in the United States.  Their ability to spread north from the Everglades is false and being driven by nothing more than the average person’s fear of snakes.  Pythons have been kept as pet for not less than 50 years in this country.  If they had the ability to establish themselves in other parts of the country, they would likely have done so by now.  One of the USGS’ selling points on this matter is that global warming over the next 100 years could allow the snakes to survive further north.  Is that what we’re going to do now?  Legislate the pet trade on what might happen in the decades to come?  Really?  Remember the movie Minority Report starring Tom Cruise?  In that movie people were  arrested and put in prison for crimes they were going to commit in the future.  Banning the ownership of snakes because the temperature might change in the future is just as preposterous.  That movie sought to teach us a subtle lesson; it appears that it was not learned.

2.Pythons are a public safety issue.

• The HSUS states that pythons kill people and are a risk to public health.  This is both fear-driven and false.  Of the pets that people choose to keep pythons are one of the least likely to be a danger.  Severe injury or death because of a python is incredibly rare.  It is estimated that more than 5 million Americans own a reptile, several hundred thousand of which are large pythons and boas.  Over the past 30 years there have been a total of 12 deaths attributed to large pythons.  While nobody should ever discount the value of a life we have to admit that so few deaths in that many years is hardly justification for pythons being a public safety issue.  It is worthy to note that none of those 12 deaths was from a python or boa escaping into the wild and attacking someone.  Each of those incidents occurred in the home and each was the result of poor caging and/or improper handling.  The simple fact of the matter is that responsible ownership of pythons and boas is not a public health concern.

The pythons in the Everglades is a decidedly Florida problem.  Florida Fish and Wildlife has jumped on the bandwagon of this ban because federal legislation means federal dollars.  The prospect of getting the entire country to fund Everglades restoration is a compelling motivator.  In order to generate support for their desired end-result they have begun actively searching for pythons and when found they parade them about on the evening news.  The media, and their love of all things sensational, is glad to feature them.

One of the most recent efforts of the HSUS has been to call for a ban on the Boa Constrictor in addition to several python species (they initially tried to ban all pythons).  Suggesting a ban on ‘boa constrictor’ is the same thing as suggesting a ban on all terrier breeds because you feel that pit bulls are a problem.  It it absolutely ridiculous.  If one of the 15 species of terriers (that’s how many my research showed there to be) was a member of your family how would you feel if they were banned because of a HSUS/media-driven view of pit bulls?  I hope you would be as frustrated and angry as the reptile community is right now.  Similar to the diversity of terriers, there are literally dozens of different types of boa constrictors and most of them are very small as adults.  We are in danger of seeing a huge portion of the pet trade eliminated by this proposed legislation.  We are scared. We are angry.  And we are frustrated.

Now, here is the point of my letter:  The reptile community is not large enough to indefinitely withstand the assault being launched by the HSUS and our current political representation is too new and inexperienced to avoid being blindsided by the clever lobbying skills long-since perfected by the HSUS.  The passage of this bill is a very real possibility.  Because of this I am asking you to help me and the rest of the reptile community.  I need your help.  Part of my livelihood and my right to responsibly own the pet of my choosing is in danger of being taken away from me.  I need you to defend pet ownership in this country by contacting both your delegate in the House of Representatives and your Senator and tell them you oppose HR2811 (the House bill) and S373 (the Senate version of the bill).  I need this help because I believe with all my heart that the only way that pet owners in this country are ever going to be safe against the efforts of organizations like the HSUS is for all of us to work together to protect the rights of all pet owners, regardless of what type of pet it is.

Do this for me.  Please.  I need your help.  Make the call to your House delegate and your Senator and I, in return, make myself available to you when you need help in your fight for your right to have the pet of your choosing.  It is past time for the pet owners of this country to come together, to form a collective and work as a unit to oppose the HSUS’ attacks on responsible pet ownership.

To find out who represents you in the House of Representatives, follow this link:  https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

To find out who represents you in the Senate, follow this link:  http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

HR2811 is currently in committee in the House.  Here is a list of the committee members: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/committee.xpd?id=HSJU

Thank you,

Colin Weaver
cmweaver@gmail.com

Am I a prone to making irrational statements and wild accusations?  Maybe.  Should I be accused of being clouded by bias, unable or unwilling to separate fact from fiction; the way the world is versus the way I want it to be?  Perhaps.  Are my words worthy of making you contemplate your perspectives?  You probably don’t know me well enough to say for sure.  I might be a loon or maybe I’m one of the most lucid people you’ll ever know.

After almost forty years on this planet I have long since learned that nobody likes a zealot.  Zealots are tantamount to crazy people.  People on the extreme end of any particular topic are typically discounted, written off.  It’s not too different from the way some teachers grade papers in college.  She grades on a curve and starts by throwing out the highest and lowest scores to determine the scale upon which everyone else will be measured.  If you are on the fringe you don’t count.  Too far right or too far left and your contribution is relegated to babble.  In order to be taken seriously, to be listened to, you have to temper your passion.  You cannot let emotion sway your judgment or the presentation of your ideas.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s OK to be a zealot but you have to keep it a secret.  If you don’t and you get outed and people detect that you have an extreme position they will turn you off, block you out and dismiss the things you say.

Because some organizations are heavily infested with zealots they have spent most of their political capital.  Their ability to sway larger portions of the population are all but lost. They have who they have but who they have isn’t anyone they would not have had in the first place.  Converts are few and opponents are many.  Think about outfits like PETA, the ACLU, NORML, the NRA and GLAAD.  Do you expect anybody from any of those groups to say anything that will surprise you?  Probably not.  There is nothing moderate about them.  They are almost always too far to one extreme, unable and unwilling to listen, learn and perhaps most important, be modified.  You see, zealots don’t want to be swayed.  They like what they believe and taking the time to understand, truly understand, what the other side says means they will be open to a new idea.  Being open to a new idea means you are open to changing the one’s you already have.  That is too dangerous a proposition for a zealot.

I don’t want to be a zealot.  I’d rather not be written off.  I write these words because I want them to be pondered.  I would like to sway your opinion to be more closely aligned with mine.  My words may not ultimately convince but I need them to give you pause; a moment when you are open to ideas that may differ from your own.  That’s my window, my opportunity.

Despite my conscious desire to want to avoid behaving like a zealot I sometimes get careless and say or write things that firmly plant me out on the edge, the place where crazy people hang out.  I am, after all, a zealot in hiding.  Sometimes I let my guard down and go rolling through crazy town, frothing at the mouth, wearing mascara, eating handfuls of dog food and screaming obscenities at nuns and small children.  Well, maybe it’s not that bad …I hope.   For example, a few days ago I was talking to my accountant about the proposed ban on pythons.  As we talked I explained how animal rights groups were behind the legislation and how it was their aim to end the ownership of exotic animals in the United States.  My accountant was with me, nodding.  Seeing that I had an agreeable audience I began to rant.  Like Sly Stallone in Over The Top I flipped my hat around, kicked it up a notch and drove straight into crazy land.  My passion for the topic got the best of me and I stepped up on my proverbial soap-box and began to explain to my accountant how it wasn’t just exotics like pythons that the Humane Society of the United States wants to ban.  I proclaimed, “The Humane Society of the United States wants to eliminate the rights of all Americans to be able to have a pet dog or cat, too!  They want to completely end pet ownership of any kind and have a systematic, multi-year plan in play to make it happen!”

… Whoops!  Wait!  Hold up.  Party foul!  That, my friends, was the wrong thing to say.  In the eyes of my accountant I could see very plainly that I had just crossed over into crazy-town (he actually rolled his eyes at me).  By transforming into a zealot I had crapped out, spent my capital and completely lost my audience.  Just moments before I had been a credible voice, full of insight, logic and reason.  I was educating a fellow pet owner about the fear-based lies being spread by the HSUS about pythons in America.  And just a sentence or two later, I was being discounted as a zealot.  Damn, that was quick.

My failure to prove my larger point with my accountant sticks with me.  I often reflect on the conversation and where I went wrong.  My accountant has no interest in pythons and could ultimately care less what happens to them.  He helps me add up how much money I lose breeding them year after year but that’s about it.  He does, however, have a dog.  The thought that an organization like the HSUS is actually plotting to take away his right to own a dog is just too far of a stretch.  He would tell me that banning dogs and cats was impossible.  I might as well have started talking about alien abduction, parallel universes where evil Captain Kirk is real (an celibate), and how the Girl Scouts killed Jimmy Hoffa.  You know, stuff crazy people say.  In his world I went there.  Proposing that dogs and cats were on the chopping block was too far a stretch.

So rather than writing something as far-fetched as what I said to my accountant, let me instead offer an end-around.  I cannot come right out and tell the average person that the HSUS wants to ban the ownership of all pets in the United States.  The idea is …crazy; something only an irrational zealot would say.  So, for the moment, let’s say that it is not true.  I don’t think it and I don’t think you should either.  All better now?  Knowing that our dogs and cats are safe we are free to ponder the following interesting pieces of information.

• In our society it is generally accepted that things produced on a small scale are inherently better than things produced on a large scale.  Homemade apple pie is always better than apple pie made in a large-scale baking facility.  Despite the similarity in the ingredients the homemade apple pie is better because it is given personal attention and made with love.  Large juggernaut operations, focused only on profit, can only make products inferior to those produced in Momma’s kitchen.  The corollary to the point above is that things produced on a large scale are somehow intrinsically bad.  They are not of the same quality as things made on a small scale.  For instance, if you choose to buy a purebred dog you are going to get a better quality one if you buy from a smaller scale breeder.  Their animals are better.  Better cared for, better quality, better, better, better.  Really?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

• The devil often masquerades as an angel.  In the movie The Usual Suspects Kevin Spacey’s character says, “The greatest lie the devil ever told was to convince the world he didn’t exist.”  During the masquerade the devil is kind, helpful, and gracious.  He speaks in compelling half-truths that sound quite genuine.  He gives you truth 90% of the time.  With so much truth floating about it is effortless for you the buy into the other 10% (the lie).  If you need additional perspective I recommend reading the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

• There is a famous cautionary anecdote that suggests that a frog placed into hot water will immediately jump out but a frog placed in cool water will sit still as the temperature is gradually raised to a boil.  Even though it is not true it can serve as a warning that if you are complacent you will find that your rights and freedoms can be taken away slowly, in seemingly painless pieces until the day you turn around and say, “Heeeyyyy?!?!  What happened to all my rights?”

• In July 2009 the governor of Tennessee signed a “commercial breeder” bill for dogs and cats that requires any individual/business with more than 20 female animals to be licensed (and pay an annual fee) in the state.  The real kicker is that the law also limits the total number of animals that any breeder can have to 75.  Breeders who maintain larger populations are persecuted by the media (sometimes justifiably so) as being inhumane “puppy mills”.  I have never seen the media report on a great breeding facility.  They only report on the bad ones.  Well-run, clean breeding facilities are not newsworthy and the media is happy to let us, the zombified public, infer that all large dog breeding operations are abusive and inhumane puppy mills (Juggernaut-brand apple pies).  The reaction of Tennessee dog breeders to this new legislation has been to A) move out of the state, B) reduce the number of breeding females to under 20 so they can avoid having to the pay fees and endure inspections or C) limit the size of their business to 75 animals.  It is worthy to note that the HSUS was behind this bill and that they “partnered” with kennel clubs in Tennessee to craft the legislation.  The HSUS convinced them that legislation was imminent and that it would be better for them to draft legislation of their own rather than having it come from somewhere else.  Snake owners, please take a moment to see the parallels in this type of maneuvering by the HSUS. I can’t seem to get the image of harakiri out of my head right now.  Not sure why I’m thinking about that…

I see a few things that will come true because of this “commercial breeder” law:

1. Haters of so-called puppy mills will celebrate because facilities with fewer animals are more likely to receive better care.  That’s true, isn’t it?  Smaller is better, right?  Homemade apple pie versus Juggernaut-brand pies…
2. Fans of the idea that there is a pet overpopulation problem will cheer because breeders will not be able to produce as many dogs, meaning more people may choose to adopt from shelters.
3. There will be fewer pure-bred dogs produced.  Owning one will become more difficult as the supply within the state decreases.
4. Purebred dogs will become more expensive as breeders pass the additional costs on to their customers.   They will also increase their prices to compensate for the reduced production capacity (evil commercial dog breeders have mortgages, too).

With the law now in effect in Tennessee it appears that efforts are being made (backed by HSUS) to again lower the maximum number of animals a breeder can keep.  HSUS’ top three skills are litigation, lobbying and legislation.  With no real adversary on the battlefield it is likely they will be successful.  When successful I can speculate that many breeders will get out of the dog breeding business.  They will not be able to produce enough animals to make a living.  This will further decrease the number of purebred dogs available which will cause animals rights activists to celebrate even more.  And of course prices on purebred dogs will continue to rise as availability continues to decline.

The decrease in availability will be partially compensated for by individuals choosing to breed the family dog.  The “backyard breeder” will breed his purebred dog and offer them into the marketplace.  These dogs are [supposedly] better.  They are produced by the smallest of the small breeders.  What could be better than a breeding operation consisting of only two dogs?  These puppies are homemade apple pie.

Enter mandatory spay/neuter laws.  There are several areas around the United States that require you to spay/neuter your dogs and cats.  If you choose not to you must pay an annual fine.  Oops, I meant to write ‘annual fee’.  Not wanting yet another recurring bill many people will choose to spay/neuter their pets.  In many areas of the country this can even be done for free (or close to it).    We spay our animals because we love them, because it saves us money and because we are sometimes told that it is better for the long-term health of the animal.  All three of these things are true.  We also spay them because the HSUS says there is a pet overpopulation problem in America. Let me take a moment to remind you about the level of truth the devils tells while masquerading.  Did you just swallow some lie with all of that truth?

Here is the question I want to ask you:  If Tennessee is stage one of a planned national assault on the size of commercial dog breeders and spay/neuter laws continue to gain momentum, where is your next pet dog going to come from?  Legislation forcing dog breeders to be smaller in size will mean that there are fewer dog breeders and less production.  Mandatory spay/neuter laws mean you and your neighbors will not be able to breed your dogs to make more.  Fewer and fewer dogs will be available.  Is it possible that owning a dog will become unusual, perhaps limited to the more financially affluent portions of the population?  You see, the HSUS doesn’t have to introduce legislation that will ban the ownership of dogs in this country (we already established that doing so would be crazy); they can achieve the same result by gradually eliminating the ability produce them!  The future inability to own a pet dog is the collateral damage.  The HSUS is way too smart to go head-to-head with dog ownership.  It will be far easier for them to take away little pieces here and there.  Think about it.  Thanks to the wonderful picture painted by the media most Americans applaud the idea of smaller commercial dog breeders.  The truth we are being sold is that the animals will be treated more humanely.  We are also buying mandatory spay/neuter laws for the reasons I mentioned earlier.  Masquerade!!!  By buying the supposed humane treatment of animals could you actually be buying the inability to own one in the future?  Give it some thought.

I believe that the Humane Society of the United States is the single biggest threat to the rights of pet owners we will ever encounter.  Their attacks on the outskirts of the the pet owning population are overt, brazen and direct.  They want to flat out ban the ownership of pythons and boas.  Such a seemingly small portion of the population is not worthy of tip-toeing around.  We, the snake owners of America, are not large enough nor organized enough to have a voice that a Senator, who sits atop a pedestal constructed with HSUS money, can hear.  Dog and cat owners, which number in the multiple millions are too large a voice to treat with such disregard.  Dog and cat owners dwarf the HSUS many times over.  They are wise not to wake a sleeping giant.

The only way the pet owning community in America is ever going to be safe against the cleverness and resilience of the Humane Society of the United States is to join together as a collective unit.  Specialized associations are nice but cannot mount a fight that will equal that of the HSUS.  We need (and have) an association of pet owners that are represented by one collective lobby; an organization that represents the millions of pet owners from one platform.  That is an organization that can be powerful enough to take on the Humane Society.  Divided, we fail.  Reptile associations.  Fail.  Bird associations.  Fail.  Dog breeder associations.  Fail.  Fish keeper associations.  Fail.  Everybody joining a National Pet Association?  That’s power!

If you have not already done so, please join the National Pet Association (http://www.natpet.org).  It’s free, they won’t ask you for any money (not today, at least) and they are interested in protecting the rights of every single pet owner in this country.  Please also consider asking everybody you know who has a pet (of any kind) to join.

Under the banner of humane treatment the HSUS is running amok all around this country.  They have got to be laughing at how easy their job is.

Cheers,

Colin Weaver

Click the icons below for a printable version of this blog post.

What a polarizing animal the python has become.

Within the portion of our country that is paying attention we are divided into two distinct groups.  One one side we have reptile owners from every walk of life; blue collar, white collar, broke-as-a-joke and stinking rich.  Some of these reptile owners have a single python while others have many and breed them for profit.  And we have owners who fit everywhere in-between.  Their levels of personal responsibility are as diverse as they are.  I’m sure there are some who have no business owning a reptile.  The overwhelming majority, however, are quite responsible.  They respect their animals, take care of them and work to ensure that they don’t impose on the rights of others who are not as enthusiastic about snakes.  And yes, many of them actually love their snakes in the way that the average person loves their dog or cat.  No, pythons are not as affectionate and attentive as my Weimaraner (not by a long shot) but they do have personalities.  Each snake is unique.  And if you were to spend some time with them you would also come to realize that truth.

On the other side of this debate is a small, well-positioned group of misinformed individuals who are calling for a federal ban on pythons; not Burmese pythons …all pythons.  Maybe.  Nobody on this side seems to be python savvy enough to know that there are actually different kinds of pythons with the overwhelming majority of them being quite tiny compared to the sinister Burmese.  I’m not entirely sure where they stand on other types of pythons and I don’t think they know either.

Eradicating the existence of pet pythons in America is such an easy thing to stand for, isn’t it?  Pythons are huge, menacing, people-eating machines that are actively slithering north from Southern Florida toward the back yards of the Washington DC suburbs where they will stalk your pets and hunt your children!  Well, that’s the way the media tells it, at least.  The truth in this debate is not so newsworthy so the media (with the help of bad info from supposedly scientific organizations) is fabricating the truth to better their ratings.  And why not?  Ratings equal dollars.  From what I gather chaos, revolution, murder, drug overdosing Kings of Pop, financial downturns, forest fires, celebrity clothing choices, car crashes and Burmese pythons are the things that sell newspapers and ad space.  From the Discovery Channel and the History Channel to a few dozen newspaper columnists around the country and all the way up to Senator Bill Nelson, who is a living, breathing example of misinformation incarnate, people who know absolutely nothing about pythons are calling for their nationwide ban.  Their numbers are small but, as I wrote earlier, they are well positioned in the media and are able amplify their noise.  The original rallying cry was the establishment of a population of Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades.  An unfounded fear regarding their ability to migrate north has generated a small amount of hysteria and rather than taking the time to find the truth they have planted their flag and are trying to rally troops to support a ban.  Senator Nelson has to support this ban in order to get money from the Humane Society of the United States so I can at least give him credit for being a true politician and supporting the voice with the fattest wallet.  The newpaper boys and girls advocating a ban are just parroting things they heard someone else say. I seriously doubt they have any real opinion of their own.  So  I forgive them.  They are puppets of the media juggernaut and know not what they do.

Two groups of people; one that understands pythons and is asking, “Really?  Seriously?”, and one that seems to have gotten their undergrad degree in large constrictors by watching Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez in 1997′s Anaconda.  Their masters thesis was complete as the credits rolled on Samuel Jackson’s Snakes on a Plane.  Armed with that level of education about the true nature of snakes they could have done themselves a favor by hiring Mr. Jackon as their spokesperson and could have used this as their slogan:

“HR 669.  When you absolutely, positively, got to ban every mother fucking snake in the land …accept no substitute.”

The call for a ban on pythons has no real merit.  It is based on irrational fear and misinformation.  And Senator Nelson embodied the desire to play on people’s fear when he unrolled a stretched out python skin during a Senate hearing in early July 2009.  He wants to protect the Florida Everglades …or so he says.  How does banning pythons in Seattle protect the Florida Everglades?  The truth is that he wants special interest money from the HSUS and other organizations who want to ban the ownership of exotic animals.  And the Burmese python is a great entry point; a way to get a better foothold on the banning process.

Just how many Burmese pythons are there in the Florida Everglades?  I have heard numbers as low as a few thousand all the way up to multiple hundreds of thousands.  People who don’t support a ban like the lower number while proponents of the ban like the big one.  The real number:  unknown.

How did Burmese pythons get into the Everglades?  I do not doubt for a single second that at some point in the past some knucklehead released a snake into the wild that should not have been released.  But it is not a verifiable fact that the current Everglades population comes from a released pet (as the media loves to suggest).  Defenders of python freedom point to Hurricane Andrew as the culprit because it caused a massive release of non-native species into the Everglades.  The truth is that nobody will ever know for sure.  We would do a lot better pointing our attention at eliminating the Burmese python from the area rather than playing blame games.  If you need volunteers to go down and collect them, call me.  I’m in.  I can also rally dozens, if not hundreds, of other snake enthusiasts who will agree that a mass collection effort will be a wonderful pastime.

I continue to be disappointed by the media’s propensity to hop on to the coat tails of the side of an argument that gets the most press.  I understand why they do it but it still disappoints.  It also diminishes my ability to trust everything else they say or print.  If they so eloquently lie to the public about pythons how much truth is there in their reporting on fossil beds in Montana?  And oh what a wonderful thing the Burmese pythons is shaping up to be. It’s a win-win for the media.  They get to sell a lie that invokes fear and then clean up on the ad revenue sold because of increased readership/web traffic.

Cheers,

Colin Weaver

As of this moment the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) must be on the black list of every single owner of exotic animals in the United States.  On this matter I am completely serious.

If you own any type of reptile, amphibian, bird or exotic mammal and you give a single penny of your money to the HSUS you are funding the attack against your own rights as a pet owner.  You must stop giving today.  But not just any dollars you contribute, you must now become a soldier for your own rights and become an outspoken opponent of the HSUS and work to convince any friends, neighbors, co-workers and relatives who give to HSUS to STOP IMMEDIATELY.  The HSUS is dangerous, reckless and the exotic animal community must work to stop them in the best way possible, by tearing away at their funding.  Without funding they will no longer be able to spread their message.  What message?  Simple.  They are actively calling for a complete ban on the ownership of all exotic animals in the United States.  This is not only about Burmese pythons.  Burmese are just the poster-child for their efforts.  Here is a link to a post made on July 6, 2009 by the CEO of HSUS in which he calls for the complete ban of exotic animals in the United States.

You can also read a response to this blog post by checking out the blog portion of the nohr669.com web site.

There are more than 26 million exotic animal owners in the United States.  Many of them may be giving money to HSUS and are unaware of the damage they are doing to their own rights in the process.  If each of us can convince just a few of those around us to never again contribute to the dangerous agenda of the HSUS we will put an end to their efforts.  But you have to participate.  You have to act and you have to do it now.  It won’t take a lot of your time.  Just be prepared to educate the people you meet about the danger of contributing the HSUS.

If you want to give money to organizations that seek to protect the welfare of animals in the United States you need to find one that advocates responsible pet ownership INCLUDING exotic animals.

Regards,

Colin Weaver

For the whole story, please read this post by my buddy Adam over at nohr669.com. He breaks it down and has the screen shots to prove it!

I often lament the danger the media poses to the reptile community (amongst other things).  The audacity of the lie that is apparently being told by the Orlando Sentinel is another powerful example of a news source fabricating the truth in an effort to further their own agenda.

If you are a reptile owner and are growing sick of the ridiculous way in which reptiles are being portrayed by the media, please take a moment to contact the editors of the Orlando Sentinel and tell them that you are aware of this deceit and request they post a retraction.

You can contact them via your favorite mechanism by clicking here.

Note:  This is not a political tirade.  Please bear with me.  I have a point that deals with reptiles.

First off, who the heck is Phil Zimmerman?  I suspect that very few people in the reptile world have ever heard of him.  Without boring you with details let’s just say that Phil is a super-smart guy in the world of cryptography. In the early 90′s Phil wrote and released a mechanism of encryption called PGP.  PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy.  In reality PGP was really good privacy but I won’t wear you out with the details on what, why, how, etc.  Phil didn’t release PGP to make money and he didn’t do it to become famous.  For a long time the United States government treated encryption as munitions.  That is, the ability to make data secret and unrecoverable was considered a weapon.  Other countries weren’t allowed to have it and our government was vigilant in preventing the export of encryption technologies.  That desire to prevent secret communications by other countries began to spread to American citizens.  There were some people in our government that felt that American citizens should also be denied the right to have a secret conversation; one the government could not get to no matter how hard they tried.  A tide was rising in our government that was seeking to remove the ability of US citizens to keep things secret from the government.  Phil thought this was dangerous (and I completely and totally agree) so he created PGP and released it to the world.  Suddenly extremely strong encryption was available to anybody, anywhere and for any reason.  If you wanted to secure a Christmas letter to your family or your plans to rob a bank there was a mechanism of encryption freely available that would prevent the government from being able to intercept and read it.  Before you get all worked up you need to understand that Phil didn’t want to help bank robbers or terrorists or anybody else who wanted to do things criminal.  He wanted to protect the rights of US citizens to have the ability to choose.  He understood that if something becomes part of our everyday lives it becomes much more difficult for the government to take it away.  He knew that if people began to use encryption as naturally as they used their television remote controls it would become impossible for the government to remove that freedom.  The people wouldn’t allow it.  And you know what?  He was right!  Today you are free to encrypt anything and everything you want, legit or otherwise.  You are free to make the choice yourself, and that’s one of the fundamental beliefs on which the United States is built.  That freedom to make that choice means that you also choose to accept the conseqences of your choice.

Look what happened when the government tried to make alcohol illegal.  Oops.  That didn’t go over so well, did it?  Imagine what would happen if the government tried to take away the automobile.  How well would that go over?  How about our right to choose our own employer and line of work?  Get my point?  Some things are so entrenched in our society that they are impossible to take away.

Most of us are aware that there are efforts underway to eliminate our right to own many types of reptiles throughout the United States.  If they are successful it will be in part because reptile ownership is not sufficiently entrenched in our society, in our homes, communities and neighborhoods.  What I’m saying is that if you are a reptile lover and you want to keep your right to own them then you need to become a reptile evangelist.  Find ways, no matter how small, to further entrench them into our society.  Get a new herper started by helping them with their first snake or gecko.  Talk with an ophidiophobe and help them become less fearful of reptiles. Speak at a high school assembly. Do something.  I’m not saying you have to put on a white shirt, a black tie and ride your bike from door to door preaching from the Book of Reptilia.  Just don’t be quiet.  Because if you are you may wake up one day to find that the reptiles you own are contraband.  And then you’ll have to make the same decisions that people did back in the days of prohibition.  Do snake shows become speakeasy’s?  Do we meet in alleys to do our deals right next to the drug dealers?  If the representatives from Florida have their way you’ll be committing a felony for driving your ball pythons across state lines.  If you breed one and sell it you’ll be a criminal.  Sound insane?  Do nothing and it could actually happen.

If you’re a breeder, get a reptile into every home you possibly can.  They need to know how to care for them, of course, but let’s penetrate the population.  Nobody is talking about banning dogs.  Why?  Because 2/3 of Americans own one.  Let’s get reptiles up to that level!  Every kid who graduates high school should get a diploma, a cookout at their folks house and a ball python!!!  College students should have to have a computer and a kingsnake.  It should be a requirement.

Cheers,

Colin Weaver

P.S. – If you haven’t gotten yourself spun up on what’s going on, read this articles that discusses the proposed ban on reptiles.  The proposed law is masquerading as a ban on importation but it’s actually a ban on ownership.  Scary, scary stuff.

The reptile hobbyist and reptile breeder is in danger of legally losing their right to own and breed many types of reptiles.  Check out my previous post discussing the legislation to ban the ownership of reptiles.  Don’t be fooled by what you read in the proposed bill.  The legislation is not only about banning the import of certain species.  It is about banning the ownership, breeding and sale of these species as well.  It is a very real and very serious threat to reptile business.  The History Channel and its show Monster Quest has helped to propagate fear among the uneducated and aided in getting this ridiculous legislation turned into law.

Colin Weaver