It seems no one is safe from the government, no matter what animals you have.

[sgath92]

Very true! responsability is taken too lightly by most. Everybody makes mistakes and we have to be accountable for them. I do the best I can not to make mistakes and have put things in place to protect my family from any I may make.

The law should take into consideration that people make honest mistakes. The law should be used not to screw over the people who mess up [particularly on something as trivial as this story! No one was hurt, killed, or put in danger of such] but to encourage people to do the right thing.

Think about it: If the feds had gone up to them with a $500 fine and said "Get the license and we'll tear this fine up" I am sure the family would have gotten licensed and everything would have been fine. If they still refused? Well then it becomes an altogether different story.

[wolfy-hound]

Why should they not have any fine at all, just because they were too lazy to look up the relevant laws?? Why should anyone hold their hand to do what they are responsible for??

I'm not saying a million dollar fine is proper, but you're saying they should be able to break the law, then they should have the law explained to them, then given another chance to follow the law and if they bother to go do that THEN they get no fine at all.

They CHOSE to start up a business and sell rabbits. If they are too lazy to go check and see if it's legal, they deserve to get busted ESPECIALLY when the relevant information is posted everywhere and easy to find and there's offices they could call to ask as well. It's not as if they just started selling a couple rabbits and got busted. They've been in business quite a while and it's not a single rabbit that happened to have babies.

Heck, I went and checked everything for my ball pythons before I sold any. And finding reptile information is a pain because of the native snake vs pet snake type information.

[sgath92]

Why should they not have any fine at all, just because they were too lazy to look up the relevant laws?? Why should anyone hold their hand to do what they are responsible for??

People make mistakes, and as long as no one is either hurt OR put at risk, I don't see why there has to be any kind of punishment for it as long as the people involved learn their lesson: fix what they were doing: and don't do it again.

All they needed to do was go through the formality of getting a license. According to the article no one is questioning how well they were caring for the rabbits. They were doing everything they should have been doing, they just didn't do the paperwork. Ok fine; let them do the paperwork, and call it a day. Everyone wins: The government keeps track of the rabbits they want to keep track of, the farmer gets to keep the farm and life goes on.

I'm not saying a million dollar fine is proper, but you're saying they should be able to break the law, then they should have the law explained to them, then given another chance to follow the law and if they bother to go do that THEN they get no fine at all.

That's how things work with "fix-it" tickets with cars. If a muffler fell off, and a car is too loud why bother fining the driver $100 when you can just say "instead of paying this $100 fine, use your $100 to go have your muffler fixed and we'll call it even." The muffler gets fixed, the driver becomes legal and that's the end of it.

The original reason why we have fines is because of this concept called "compliance." The government wants people to follow the law, so they use carrot or stick tactics to try to pressure people to comply with the law. It's when governments realize "oh wait, we could fine the crud out of everyone and use that to line our agency's pockets" that you start getting unfair practices like the excessive fine in this story, or red light cams on intersections that have been ALTERED to have less-safe, shorter yellow-lights. Etc.

[wolfy-hound]

Yes but the "fix it" rules are because something can break on your car and you can get a ticket before getting it fixed. IE, your headlight goes out, but it's not night yet and you don't know. So it's dark and the headlight doesn't work, the cop stops you and says "Your headlight is out, fix it and you don't have to pay this $100."

It's not like they "mistakenly" started breeding and selling rabbits, or were unaware they were breeding and selling rabbits.

It's like saying you shouldn't get a ticket for running a stop sign because you had no idea that you were supposed to come to a full stop. You're supposed to know the laws before getting a license, and before starting businesses.

[oliverstwist]

*shudder* I will be applying for USDA cert in a month.