With the legislature running this bills through their respective houses without pre-press and not allowing the public an opportunity to speak to me screams volumes! Then to future the case three legislators and their families and friends will reap monumental rewards! Owners of horse auctions that the bills says horses have to go through auction, then another owns a transport company, another owns racehorses he is feeding to go to slaughter? That in itself is enough the public should be in an uproar! Then they didn't evaluate the economic loss from the horse show industry that at this moment is trying to pull their shows from the state. They also knew horses have to be feed properly with NO drugs to be for human consumption... they knew and authored the bills... They also knew that right now at least 8 to 11 horse feed lots are in the state waiting for this to pass... who owns them? Yep! One authors family has been running ads to buy good horses! Yikes! Worst of all it is not, I repeat not old and diseased horses going to market... slaughterhouses won't take those ... it's young viable horses with meat on their bones... toxic meat! Slaughter is inhumane! Horses are very intelligent and know they are being put to death so they try to run... I won't go into graphic details... I have had nightmares since I learned on the news of the potential news laws... Does OK want to be known for poisoning the world? Not a left wing radical but a very conservative Oklahoman!

I wish your article had added reasons why people are opposing these bills. It isn't solely on not slaughtering the horses, which is a huge reason unto itself. The passing of these bills will hurt Oklahoma financially also. Please look at the 3 slaughter plants that were in the US in the past. These were terrible for the economy in that area. There were also problems with sewage and water treatment, the plants didn't pay the taxes, and they ran up huge infractions that they never paid.The hauling of the horses was a constant problem - and very inhumane (and that's the hauling within our borders). The problem with hauling isn't the TIME, it's the way it's conducted. That isn't going to change. And last but not least, is the bolt action devices that they use are not made for horses, they are made for cattle. Cattle are different physically and mentally from horses. Horses are flight animals, they panic and thrash around. It can take several tries to subdue them. Also the jobs that these plants are going to bring are dangerous, and terrible work conditions - they have to be from the very job that it's intailing. The previous plants paid the employees low wages. Please do the research yourself. Write to your representatives. We will not like where this puts us, if this passes.

Oklahoma appears to want to slaughter horses solely to sell tainted meat to foreign markets. Reminds me of the things that we have found shipped here from China that caused harm. China did not follow regulations. We will put our country in the same situation. When horse slaughter was legal and USDA inspectors when present, horses were not killed humanely. Many people have stopped eating beef as they are concerned that since the beef producers want to slaughter horses now they may not be following regulations as to medications and record keeping for their cattle.

I don't understand the logic of Oklahoma or New Mexico opening up slaughter plant. look at the horsemeat. Scandal in Europe- they must have a glut of it as they are using it's a cheap filler for beef. A dirty little secret by those who deal in the murky horse slaughter trade. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that 90% of American horses over their lifetimes have been injected with veterinary chemicals not " intended for human consumption"...yet you have the legislators of Ok and New Mexico going along with the proslaughter folks who will be making tons of money slaughtering horses intended for European markets only ( unless they prohibit North American horsemeat because it is not safe to eat) with the inspections paid by the taxpayers who don't want horses slaughtered and won't eat horsemeat anyway... Who is minding the proverbial store in those states?if it was the people voting on this, it wouldn't happen...