NRA CEO Doug Hamlin's cat killing story

 Per Stephanie Kirchgaessner in The Guardian, 14 October 2024:

Douglas Hamlin, who was appointed to lead the NRA this summer in the wake of a long-running corruption scandal at the gun rights group, was involved decades ago in the sadistic killing of a fraternity house cat named BK, according to several local media reports at the time.

Hamlin pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty brought against him and four of his fraternity brothers in 1980, when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The charge was brought against Hamlin under a local Ann Arbor ordinance. All five members of Alpha Delta Phi were later expelled from the fraternity.

The details of the case, described in local media reports at the time, are gruesome. The house cat was captured, its paws were cut off, and was then strung up and set on fire. The killing, which occurred in December 1979, was allegedly prompted by anger that the cat was not using its litterbox.

The case caused such a furore locally that some students and animal rights activists wore buttons and armbands in memory of BK.

While The Guardian notes that Hamlin's role was not clear, Judge S.J. Elden singled him out for particular criticism as the president of the fraternity who had a responsibility to prevent it--and not, as was attempted without success, to cover it up.

(See other conservative animal abuse tagged posts, about Kevin Roberts, Bill Frist, Kristi Noem, James Dobson, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Jerry Falwell.)