Hi!
With all due respect & mot for the sake of argument; neither one of the stories you linked to could've been avoided with extra screening processes. I'm not jumping on anyone here and I don't want to offend anyone.

Story #1 - The family was keeping the snake for a friend. For all we know the friend could've had many years experience with big snakes. Even the parents that were arrested could've had many years of experience. It only takes one misstep.

Story #2 - A petshop owner, who admittedly made a mistake.

It doesn't sit too well with me that everytime new legislation is proposed some people want to try to blame the breeders and/or sellers. There is no way on earth that we can foresee who will eventually make a mistake or do something stupid. It is, in effect, a "shift the blame" game.

To me, that's equivalent to anti-gun fanatics suing gun manufacturers because a person that was once perfectly sane purchased a gun legally, later in life his brain short-circuited and he killed someone. OR, a thief steals a legally owned gun & kills someone in a robbery attempt and people blame gun mfgs.

Let's all blame & sue the cigarette mfgs because a family member made a conscious decision to smoke cigarettes and died from lung cancer. Oh, that's right, many people have & are. And I had the opportunity to jump on that bandwagon with a class-action lawsuit, but I didn't because that was my father's choice.

I was 14 - 15 yrs old when I bought my first Burmese Python back in the mid '70s. I knew what I was doing. Now, more than 30 yrs later and still keeping pythons I can knock on wood and say that I've never had a single close call. But I could easily slip up tomorrow. Would the person that sold me the 12-footer when it was a hatchling be responsible, at fault? No.

Every now & then when an unfortunate event happens with a venomous snake I see/hear the same thing - "Breeders/sellers need to do more about choosing who they sell to."

Well, guess what? The overwhelming majority of venomous snake bites and big snake attacks happen to people with many years of experience. The young wife in the Northeast of the US that not too long ago was strangled by her python. Remember that her family said she had a lot of experience with them. But yet, she made a bad decision that unfortunately cost her her life.

It is not the breeders, dealers, sellers, OR the animals, that are causing us problems. It's mostly people that know better but either decide to go ahead & take the risk or inadvertently let their guard down. We all make mistakes. Some are more costly than others. It's a fact that the overwhelming majority of snake bites/attacks could not have been prevented by any type of screening process.

Should every car dealer take a prospective buyer to a road course to make sure that they are safe drivers before selling them a car?

If you still believe that breeders and/or sellers need to do more I'm open for suggestions that would work. Please list a few.

Have a good one!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American


www.natures-signature.com

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