BSL Alert for Missouri!

[someday]

This is horrible..just found out about it today....PLEASE write some letters, especially if you're in MO...I know I'll be doing plenty as well as calling and hounding.
*****
Representatives McGhee of District 122 (Cass, Johnson,
Lafayette) and Maria Chappelle-Nadal of District 44 (St. Louis)
have a sponsored house bill 1686 requiring pit bull
registration and muzzling.

Overall this bill will wreck havoc on all NMHP and animal
welfare priorities. Enforcement of the bill will be through
the local animal control. Unregistered pit bulls will be held
for up to 2 months. This is going to clog up the entire
shelter system. Thousands of dogs that are pit bull type or
have some characteristics of pit bull type dogs will be put
down (but of course this will not stop the underground puppy
market). State officials from the department of agriculture
will be in charge of the licensing, probably leading to less
enforcement of puppy mills, etc. This is plain and simple a
waste of resources.

Probably the least expensive part of this bill, is the direct
cost on pit bull owners ($500/per dog/per year) and indirect
cost of the shame of having to register and muzzle your beloved
pet. Furthermore, this registration will probably lead home
insurers to drop most homeowners with pit bulls (similar to
State Farm’s policy in Ohio and other locales with BSL). Many
people may be forced to choose between family dog and home. I
urge you to act now, so this bill is stopped in its tracks.

Send your representative an email and give them a call to
oppose this bill. If you are a KS resident, send information
as a dog owner/expert and income or sales taxpayer in KCMO.
You might suggest that the representatives look at sponsoring a
breed neutral dangerous dog bill, like Illinois’ Ryan Armstrong
Law, http://www.geminiz.com/ArmstrongAct/ArmstrongAct.htm.
Please realize that this bill (like local BSL) will create
public safety issues and will lead destruction of many other
animals because of lack of animal shelter space.

I will send out an email when this bill has moved beyond the
introduction.

You can easily find who your representative is at
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/state/main/?state=MO

Or check out the map for all local representatives:

http://www.house.mo.gov/maps/kc/kcmap.htm

******

Here's the bill

[/url]http://www.house.mo.gov/bills061/biltxt/intro/HB1686I.htm[/url]