Supreme Court ruling prompts new draft of animal cruelty law

One day after the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a 1999 law banning videos depicting animal cruelty, the congressman who originally wrote the statute announced his intention to introduce animal cruelty legislation that is more narrowly tailored, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., along with Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va., introduced a new measure that will still target so-called crush videos — fetish films where women torture or kill small animals by stepping on them. The proposed law would prohibit the interstate sale of videos where animals are "intentionally crushed, burned, drowned or impaled" unless the depictions had "religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historic, or artistic value."