Greyhound Racing Tasmania

[corvus]

So now we ban pet ownership because some people abuse their pets? That's where that logic takes you.

Hardly. People are allowed to do a lot of things even when a minority abuse that right or privilege and cause harm to others. Smoke, own guns and knives, drive cars, drink alcohol, operate heavy machinery, parachute, gamble, have children, etc. etc. We have laws so that people can have freedom while not endangering or harming others. When a group is identified as having broken the law repeatedly and it is having a serious impact on others, they may be targeted with additional legislation. Typically it seems to be a knee jerk reaction that victimises a lot of people that weren't breaking the law, and it's questionable if it does any good. I imagine it depends. However, I doubt the greyhound industry is a victim of such targeting. It's a convenient excuse, and one that's only available because the greyhound industry is far from squeaky clean in the first place.

It's a slippery slope.

No it's not. It's a logical fallacy. Unless you can provide a valid inductive argument or a mechanism by which the banning of greyhound racing on apparently welfare grounds will probably lead to the banning of pet ownership on welfare grounds, then it is a fallacious slippery slope.

You mean the same AR activists who have just got greyhound racing banned in NSW? Those ones?

I think you give them more credit than they deserve. The government might be painting it as an animal rights decision, but I'm almost certain it's not. At any rate "AR activists just got greyhound racing banned so therefore they could get pet ownership banned" is also not a valid inductive argument. Just so you know. It is the exact same slippery slope fallacy I was originally objecting to.

[Steve]

I also believe its not an animal rights decision and I think the animal welfare involvement was a convenient bonus for them that enabled them to do what they wanted and looking at the possibility that there would ever be a ban on pet ownership is way way too unrealistic for me to consider as a risk as a follow on from this.

So while I think we have nothing to worry about regarding a ban on pet ownership I do think we should be looking at the activities we do with companion animals and assess what we do and how we can ensure dog owners and dog breeder rights are not eroded.