[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Are you the kind of mod who argues in a thread and then bans people who disagree with him?
It's a torturing/killing dogs vs. beating up women thing, then.
If first-time woman beaters don't usually get jail time, then neither should Vick, because beating up women = worse than killing dogs. IMO.
And WTF at people saying you can't compare the two... that's exactly how punishments and sentencing are determined!! Is this crime worse than x crime? That's how it's done, for cripes' sake.
[/ QUOTE ]
The meat of the charges is coming from the fact that what he did essentially amounts to organized crime. So you can say that it's comparing killing dogs to beating women all you want, but it's the wrong comparison. To use your arguments, you need to compare beating up women to organized crime. When you do that I think you'll find that the punishment is just what you'd expect given the degree Vick went in this endeavor.
[/ QUOTE ]
Oh, come on now. The "organized crime" is the operation of a dogfighting ring, for cripes' sake. And allowing gambling on it.
I don't think gambling or taking dogs across state lines should be illegal, so yeah, I guess I still think wife-beating is worse than the "organized crime" Vick is charged with.
[/ QUOTE ]
Okay. So we know that dogfighting, gambling on dogfighting, and torturing/murdering dogs is illegal, right? It's fine if you want to say that the penalties for those activities shouldn't be very severe. However, here's what Vick did:
<ul type="square">[*]Bought a property exclusively for dogfights[*]Bought and trained dogs to be used exclusively for dogfights[*]Managed and placed bets on these fights[/list]
Allegedly.
This isn't a couple of guys in a back alley letting two dogs go at it. Vick funded and headed this whole thing with the intent to break the law. That level of organization always receives a harsher punishment than just engaging in the activities. The key is not really the illegal activity itself, but how much money and effort was used in order to commit these illegal activities.