The Mississippi legislature again has allowed a bill to die in committee that would have strengthened the state’s animal cruelty laws.

Residents of Mississippi who care about animals should be outraged.

Residents of Mississippi who don’t care about animals should be outraged, too. Here’s why.

Mississippi is now one of only three states that don’t treat first offense aggravated animal cruelty as a felony. In addition, one of the bills, put forth by Sen. Angela Burks Hill, a Picayune Republican, would have allowed law enforcement to charge those who abuse animals with multiple counts of animal abuse. Current Mississippi animal cruelty laws don’t allow for that.

According to a story on the website Mississippi Today, two similar bills in the state House of Representatives also failed to make it out of committee, effectively killing them.

We are not going to recount the many cases of horrific, torturous animal abuse that cruel humans have committed. You know all too well about some of those cases, and the fact the abusers can be charged, if at all, with only a misdemeanor is a ridiculous injustice that the Mississippi legislature has once again failed to address.

Why haven’t our elected state officials acted? Hill and most everyone credit the Farm Bureau of Mississippi. Apparently, that group has used its dollars and other influence to kill the bills because it fears any strengthened animal cruelty laws could be used against the state’s farmers.

House Agriculture Chairman Rep. Bill Pigott, R-Tylertown, told Mississippi Today that he agrees with Farm Bureau, saying it would like to see the state’s current laws fully enforced before strengthening the laws.

Hogwash. What does that even mean?

The state’s current laws are so ineffective and tie law enforcement officials’ hands in such a way to make them not worth pursuing.

They want to fully enforce a bill that is basically worthless before strengthening it? Do they think the people of Mississippi are that gullible as to believe that rhetoric?

In addition, the proposed bills include language that specifies they apply to domestic animals only.

The FBI has begun tracking cases of animal cruelty nationally. That agency knows that often people whom torture or abuse animals soon move on to doing the same to humans. Mississippi doesn’t participate in reporting animal cruelty cases.

Hill’s and the other proposed legislation would have paved the way for such acts in Mississippi to be part of the FBI’s crime statistics.

The majority of Mississippians are in favor of stronger laws to protect our pets and punish those who commit acts of aggravated cruelty.

The failure of Mississippi’s legislators to represent the citizens they are elected to represent in favor of potential campaign contributions from the Farm Bureau of Mississippi is an example of exactly what is wrong with our state government today.

Mississippi voters should take careful notes and remember failures like this one when they next go to the polls.