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

I’m not a complete noob, mind you.  I have long understood the electoral college, the functions of the three branches of government, the importance of “checks and balances” and the general processes involved in making a bill into law.  But there was a long period of my life when I openly stated that it didn’t matter which individuals were in which positions in the state and federal government, that they had no direct impact on my day-to-day life.  Because it was instilled in me to do so from a young age I have always voted in the elections; local, state and federal.  I wanted my candidates to win but never really expected my life to go one direction instead of another if the results didn’t go my way.  I was naive.  I was wrong.  My eyes, today, are wide open and what I am seeing leaves me horrified, disappointed, disenfranchised and angry.

More than 200 years ago (in 1787) the Founding Fathers of our nation came together to rewrite the original Articles of Confederation, the result of which was the creation of our Constitution and what we all know to be the United States of America.  Many of the original authors of the Constitution were strongly motivated by a seemingly simple theme: limit the size, scope and power of the federal government, leaving the majority of the power in the hands of individual sovereign states.  Embracing the concept of  federalism, our founding fathers recognized the need for a central government in addition to each state’s autonomous government.  There was (and is) a lot of debate over how much power the federal government should have.   The United States, by Constitutional design, is a federation of states.  This means that each states governs itself in addition to the presence of a federal government.  Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution defines the scope of the federal government.  More specifically, it and the Bill of Rights are designed to limit the scope of the federal government’s power over the states.  That which is not the defined in the Constitution falls to the individual states to decide.  Placing strong limitations on the power of the federal government was intentionally done by the people who founded this nation.  The control the federal government was supposed to exert over the lives of citizens day-to-day activities was, by design, limited.  That power was intended to remain with the individual states.  However, largely due to two clauses in Article I, Section 8 (the so-called Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause) the federal government has piled up a long history of overstepping its Constitutional authority and increasing its power over the states.  This has been happening for a long time (since the end of the Civil War) and has been progressing very quickly since the mid-1930′s.  This accumulation of power by the federal government has been happening for so long that the overwhelming majority of us simply take it as normal.  Why would we question it?  It has always been this way, hasn’t it?  But understand this very clearly:  it is not supposed to be this way.  The federal government should not be making decisions that the states are Constitutionally obliged to make on their own.  I believe pet (reptile) ownership and invasive species law are excellent examples.

The 10th amendment to the Constitution should have sealed the deal on the where the bulk of the power in our federation resides.  It states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  To summarize, Article I, Section 8 and 9 define the scope of power for the federal government and the 10th Amendment ensures that power not specifically given to the federal government is in the hands of the states.  Take a minute and read Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution and the 10th Amendment.  It will take less time than it has taken you to read this far in my post.  Unfortunately, several of the clauses in Article I, Section 8 are sufficiently vague that they have been twisted and mangled by both Congress and the courts in order to seize more and more power at the federal level.  Reptile owners are experiencing the result of this first-hand.

Each of the fifty states is an entity that embodies the needs and priorities of the individuals who live in them.  They are wonderfully diverse in geography, climate, natural resources and population.  Each state is unique and the needs of one are not the same as the needs of the next.  Because of their diversity it is not possible for the federal government to appreciate the impact of its decisions on individuals and communities within a state.  In fact, it is not the job of the federal government to make such decisions.  I direct you once again to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.  The question of whether or not certain pythons and boas are a danger to the environment of a certain state is a state decision, not a federal one.  I suggest that the federal government’s decision to involve itself is an overstepping of its authority.  Unfortunately, through more than a hunderd years of power grabbing (the creation of the Department of the Interior and two of its agencies, US Fish & Wildlife and the US Geological Survey) the federal government has given itself the power to control the states in this matter.

One of the most simple and interesting aspects of federalism that I have come to embrace is the concept of mobility.  Because the power is supposed to reside in the hands of the state governments it is a citizen’s right to simply move somewhere else if the state enacts laws that are incongruous with their personal goals and/or beliefs.  Put more simply, if you don’t like what your state is doing, leave.  You can move to a state that is more closely aligned with your needs as a citizen.  However, when the federal government oversteps its authority and enacts federal law it leaves citizens with nowhere to go.  Because federal law is an umbrella that casts its shadow of control over all the states we are, in a very real sense, trapped.  There is nowhere to go to be free of the decisions of the federal government.  This should infuriate python owners in Vermont and South Dakota.  Their liberty is at risk because of a perceived problem almost two-thousand miles away in the southernmost portions of Florida.  For the python-loving residents of South Dakota the only way to rid themselves of such federal tyranny is to leave the country.  While moving from Florida to Virginia is readily do-able for most of the population, moving from Florida to Italy is not.  For me, this is the part I fear the most.  If laws banning pythons and boas are enacted at a federal level there is literally nowhere to go.  Mobility, which is a mechanism to free myself from the decisions of an individual state, will have been stolen from me.

The desire to increase the size, scope and power of the federal government is viewed as a positive by those who embrace statism.  Statists, whose actions and philosophies are most frequently aligned with what today is the far-left Democratic party, seek to increase power of the federal government in virtually all aspects of a citizen’s life.  It can be seen in large scale events like the government taking an ownership stake in corporations, government run health-care and social security.  It is also evidenced on a smaller scale in the desire for the federal government to impose a national ban on the importation and inter-state trade of pythons.  Why does the federal government need to impose rules on states who have no capacity to be affected by the suggested spread of the Burmese python (North Dakota, for instance)?  Why does the federal government simply not leave these decisions in the hands of states that deem themselves at risk?  This was the intent of the Constitution, was it not?  The answer can be summed up in one word:  power.  For statists, the acquisition of power at a federal level is taken at every opportunity in order to create a larger, stronger and more powerful central government.

As a side note:  The acknowledgment that pythons may one day have the ability to spread into the lower 1/3 of the United States is one piece in the highly political argument over global warming.  If the federal government concludes that the Burmese python will spread because of warming trends predicted by the USGS then it is yet one more piece of evidence that global warming is a real, human-caused, condition.  Such proof will be used to support future environmental legislation.  Do not think for a moment that this issue is just about pythons.  The trickery engaged in by people with political agendas takes on incredibly veiled forms.

Through their own local politicians the states have contributed to the increase of the power of the federal government by accepting the federal govenrment’s money to fund in-state projects.  It’s a nasty behavior, really.  By getting federal funding for state initiatives the states are getting their funding from all American taxpayers even though there is no benefit to the other states.  This smacks of abuse of power and should ring loud in the ears of reptile owners as Senator Bill Nelson of Florida (a Democrat) and House Representative Dennis Meek of Florida (also a Democrat) both introduced federal legislation to ban the importation and interstate transport of pythons (S373 and HR2811) in an effort to acquire federal tax dollars to fund the restoration efforts in the Florida Everglades.  There are also added fringe benefits for both of them.  Had the legislation passed their next election campaign would have heralded them as the “candidtate that saved the Everglades from the scourge of the Burmese python”.  Another shining example of this is the recent deal made by Senate Democrats with Ben Nelson (Democrat from Nebraska) to get the other 49 states to pay for the Medicaid expansion costs in Nebraska …forever!  The taxpayers of Virginia should be venomously opposed to the idea of paying for hospitals in Nebraska.  If you’re not, check the mirror for your lobotomy scar.

As states accept more and more federal funding they give more and more power to the federal government.  Over time they have become dependent upon the flow of money and, as a result, are often held hostage because of it.  For example, in 1974 the federal government enacted the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act which federally mandated the speed limit on the nation’s highways to 55 mph.  In 1986 Nevada changed the speed limit to a 3-mile stretch of highway to 70 mph.  Within a few hours of doing so the federal government revoked their highway funding.  The state changed the limit back to 55.  (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law).

In the end none of this talk about the abuse of federal power really matters.  And that saddens and frustrates me.  The federal government has acquired the power to determine the fate of pythons and boas in the pet trade.  Right or wrong the power is there.  Nothing in the near future is going to change that.  If the unthinkable happens and pythons and boas are added to the Lacey Act as injurious species you can rest assured that there will be legal challenges that play out over a span of years.  But the fight over the fate of pythons and boas is not about science.  It’s about politics.  Are Burmese pythons truly a threat to the lower 1/3 of the United States?  In the end it doesn’t really matter.  This is about special interest groups, campaign contributions, pet projects, and government power.  Pythons are being sold as creatures with the power to completely destroy ecosystems, hunt humans and spread disease.  None of it is true.  But facts don’t matter …and that is a shame.

Regards,

Colin Weaver

The reptile community has been suckered.  We are falling for a very clever ruse and it is happening at this very moment.

What trick, you say?  S373 and HR2811, of course.  The clever nature of the trickery behind these bills has caused the reptile community to lose its perspective and react in a most unexpected way.  We are now working for the other side.  We are unintentionally supporting a ban.  Allow me to explain.

Both S373 and HR2811 propose to add the entire genus PYTHON to the injurious species list of the current Lacey Act.  If passed this will ban the importation of AND interstate transport of all pythons.  This will effectively end the trade in every species of python there is.  This is, of course, a horrifying proposition to python lovers everywhere.  At first I laughed at the silliness of it and shook my head at how uneducated the people were who penned such legislation.  But as I continued to think about it I came to realise that it may actually be brilliant wording on their part.  It’s brilliance lies their anticipation of our reaction.  As a community we have played directly into the hands of those who wish ban the ownership of exotic animals.  And leading the packed on being tricked is one of our most active voices, the United States Association of Reptile Keepers, USARK.

In my opinion USARK has officially thrown the Burmese Python under the proverbial bus.  I have long feared it would one day happen but did not expect it to come so soon.  On July 25th, 2009 USARK actively solicited the reptile community to contact members of the House Judiciary Committee to amend the wording of HR2811 to specifically address Burmese pythons rather than the entire python genera.  In doing so they have become unintentional participants in the initiative to ban large constrictors in the United States.  And I suggest that this is partially what the authors of S373 and HR2811 wanted to happen.  I believe these bills are INTENTIONALLY vague (by using only the term ‘python’) in order to get us to say, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!  Don’t ban all pythons!  Just ban Burmse pythons! “ Wait.  Did we, the reptile community, really just say that?  Yeah, we did.

The last I heard USARK’s position was that they did not support legislation that was not based on a legitimate scientific analysis of the ability of the Burmese python to expand beyond the Florida Everglades.  Has such evidence surfaced?  No, it has not.  But their position appears to have changed.  USARK wants to be the voice of the reptile community and they appear to be suggesting that we offer up the Burmese python as a sacrifice to protect all the other pythons.

Please don’t take my words to think that I am coming down on USARK as a whole.  I do not intend to do so.  I firmly believe that USARK has, at its foundations, nothing but the absolute best intentions for the reptile community.  They are a group of people who have stood up to fill a void; a voice to represent reptile owners throughout the United States.  But I do not agree with their reaction to this particular issue.  And part of me thinks that they, like the rest of us, have been tricked into a position that supports the desired result of those who wish to ban the ownership of exotic animals.   We have played into their hands.  Just a few short months ago we were all screaming, “No.  You may not ban pythons without scientific evidence to support their ability to be invasive beyond the Florida Everglades.” Now, in a tiny amount of time, we seem to have changed our voice to say, “Please, please, please!  Just ban Burmese pythons.” The only way we could have changed our tune so quickly is if we were tricked into doing so.  And tricked we have been.

If you are going to make a call on Monday to a member of the House Judiciary Committee regarding the wording of HR2811 (as the USARK suggests) you need to make a choice about what you are going to say.  Are you going to advocate a change in the wording that says it’s OK to ban the Burmese python or are you going to tell them that the Lacey Act should not be amended until proof can be found that pythons are a national problem rather than just an isolated problem in the south of Florida?

And by the way, there is already a bill floating around that will fund efforts to hunt Burmese pythons in the Everglades (as well as multiple dozens of other non-native creatures that get no publicity).  If Burmese pythons cannot expand beyond the Everglades and we are going to hunt them down and remove them, why do we need a law banning them throughout the entire United States?  In short, we don’t.

Once the exotic animal banning gates are open we cannot close them.  More and more reptiles and other exotics will find themselves legally unavailable for ownership.

Regards,

Colin Weaver

P.S. – Where are the big shipping companies?  Delta (via Delta Dash), FedEx and UPS all stand to lose a considerable amount of money if these bans are actually put into effect.  They should want to lobby on behalf of the responsible reptile owning community and ensure the future of a large revenue stream.

Final note:  It is not lost on me that USARK’s position may be one of minimization.  They may be taking a precautionary stance by seeking to amend the wording to minimize damage if the unthinkable should happen.  But even if that is true it doesn’t change the fact that there has been a shift in tone toward a willingness to let Burmese python ownership become a thing of the past.

• You want to be able to buy a reptile of a certain species at any point in the future.
• You want to be able to sell or trade a reptile of a certain species at any point in the future.
• You want to be able to breed a reptile of a certain species at any point in the future.
• You want to be able to transport a reptile across any state line at any point in the future.

As a community the reptile industry is terribly unorganized.  We have no central body to represent us on a large scale and as a community we are now poised to have our hobby, our pastime, our businesses and, for many, our livelihood, eliminated by federal law.  I’m not trying to be dramatic.  This is real.  If, as a group of citizens who share a common interest, we don’t get motivated about preserving our rights we will lose them.  It is highly likely that those who represent us in the House and the Senate will gladly vote to make this bill into law because on the surface it seems to be a good idea.  It aims to protect the United States from the damaging effects of nonnative animal species.  And while we cannot doubt that there is a need for some protections for our native habitats we are in danger of having large chunks of the reptile business swept away in the process.  We cannot let this happen.

As a community we need to protect our interests.  This means we need to become organized.  The exact mechanism by which we do this needs to become a point of immediate discussion followed by swift action.  The formation of a trade association with the ability to lobby on our behalf specifically as it relates to this proposed law appears to be a mandate.  I suspect that the lack of such action will lead to the worst of all possible outcomes for the reptile industry.

The formation of a trade association is one thing.  Joining and supporting (yes, financially) that association is another.  If you like keeping/breeding/selling reptiles you will need to particiapte.  This is true even if you only have a single animal that serves as the household pet.  Trade associations that lobby for their cause require the financial resources to do so.  Are you willing to spend money to support a trade association that endeavors to protect your right to own the reptile of your choosing?  I hope so.  Because if you’re not, you may lose the right to own one in the future.

Let me explain how this proposed law, currently called the ‘Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act’, will affect you.  Once in effect there will be two lists; a list of approved species and a list of banned species.  These lists will control whether or not a certain species may be imported into the United States.  Those who only want the reptile business propagated by captive breeding may initially welcome a long list of banned species.  This Act, however, goes much deeper than controlling the importation of animals.  In no part is the intent of this Act to preserve and protect reptiles in their native habitat.  This Act intends produce a single long-term result:  the elimination certain reptiles from existence anywhere in the United States.

If approved this Act will make the following a reality:

• You may no longer posess, sell or offer to sell, purchase, trade or offer for trade any animal on the banned list.
  • Result:  Large chunks of the reptile business:  bye-bye.  All of the people who have jobs today in part because of the reptile business:  bye-bye.
• You may no longer transport any animal on the banned list across any state line by any means.
  • Result:  Shipping a reptile to someone across state lines will be a crime.  Taking your reptile to a trade show will be a crime.
• You may no longer own any animal that is on the banned list.  If you owned the animals PRIOR to this Act becoming law you may continue to lawfully own the animal.
  • Result:  There is a hidden catch to this.  If you legally own one of these animals today you will have to reveal that ownership to the authorities tomorrow.  And there will be fees for the ownership, I’m sure.  I suspect you will also be subject to inspections from authorities and will have to notify the authorities of any action you are taking with your animal.  This is already true in some communities today.  This Act will make it a federal matter that applies to all of us.
• You may NOT breed any animal that is on the banned list and you may NOT provide an animal to any other person for the purpose of breeding.
  • Result:  This effectively end the reptile breeding trade for any banned species.

What kind of crime are you committing if you get caught doing one of these things?  Well, it’s a Lacey Act violation.  If the animal you are caught with is worth more than $350 it is a felony.  You could be sent to prison for several years (including life) and fined up to $250,000.  If you are a business that gets caught the fine doubles to $500,000.  If the animal you are caught with is less than $350 in value you are guilty of a misdemeanor.  Misdemeanor charges include jail time up to 1 year and fines up to $100,000 for individuals and $200K for businesses.

How do we fight such a proposal?  Section 4(c)(B) requires that an animal on the Approved List can only get there if the evaluating authorities are provided “sufficient scientific and commercial information to allow the Secretary to evaluate whether the proposed nonnative wildlife species is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to other animal species’ or human health.”  The elimination of the ability to buy/sell/trade/own or breed certain reptiles and/or transport them across state lines will cause grave financial harm to the reptile business.  And it won’t just be the breeders who suffer.  The retailers of reptile caging supplies, rodent breeders, and veterinarians will suffer financially as well.  Freight carriers such as Delta and FedEx will lose millions of dollars per year in revenue.  The trickle down effect will be widespread.  This illustrates the importance of a trade association that has lawyers and lobbyists that can make these points and argue for our rights.

Section 4(b)(1)(B) provides for animals that are potentially destructive to be on the Allowed List that “may be harmful to the United States’ economy, the environment, or other animal species’ or human health, but already are so widespread in the United States that it is clear to the Secretary that any import prohibitions or restrictions would have no practical utility for the United States.”  What a great opportunity this is.  I’m not a lawyer and I can easily conjure up ideas on how this can be leveraged.

Where do we go from here?  I’m not 100% sure but we need to get serious about it.  There may be others in the industry who are way ahead of me.  If you are, please speak up.  If there is nobody out there who has already taken the lead on this then we need people within the community who have the skills to step up.  Me?  In addition to breeding reptile professionally I’m a computer network security guy.  I know how to make computers go but I don’t really know how to start a trade association or set up a lobby with legal support.  Do you?

Anyone?

Sources:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h669/text
http://www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/lacey.html