The fact that an admitted cat killer has supporters speaks to the divisive nature of cats in general.

From a purely sociological perspective, cats seem to fall somewhere between vermin and dogs on the sanctity-of-life scale.

We freely kill insects, rats and bats – and possibly even squirrels or birds that try to nest in an attic space. A fox or a raccoon raiding a henhouse won’t last long in a rural setting. But cats and dogs – all domesticated animals, really – are a different story.

The bigger the animal, it seems, the more difficult it is to justify killing them. A landowner wouldn’t gun down a heifer or a horse that escaped the neighbor’s pasture and started grazing on the front lawn. But a stray cat turning a flower bed into a litter box?

Read more at The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.