Accused Animal Abuser Bullet Maker Again Allowed to Shoot Pigs

Besides the obvious, what makes this so disgusting is that this company was actually fined for abuse of hogs last year! This is admitted by a VP of the company:

Stan Bulmer, Le Mas president of marketing, who lives in Spokane, told The Associated Press that the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined his company $2,750 last year for "physical abuse of hogs while conducting research." Bulmer said the settlement agreement covered the violation at the Arkansas farm.

Great to see that just anyone can get pigs and do what they want to them. Even sicko companies already guilty of animal abuse.

Article:

PETA: Bullet maker tested ammo on pigs

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/eastsidenews/
2002840863_petapigs03e.html

By The Associated Press

SPOKANE — A prosecutor is reviewing claims by a national animal-rights group that a munitions distributor violated Washington's animal-cruelty law by using live pigs to test new bullets.

Spokane County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Brian O'Brien said he is reviewing a video and other materials supplied by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), but the information has yet to be forwarded to law-enforcement agencies for criminal investigation.

"We'll give it a fair look before deciding what kind of investigation, if any, should be done," O'Brien said.

The video shows 10 tethered pigs being shot with bullets distributed by Le Mas Ltd. PETA claims the pigs were killed in Spokane County. A Le Mas official said the test shown on the video was done more than three years ago at an Arkansas farm.

Stan Bulmer, Le Mas president of marketing, who lives in Spokane, told The Associated Press that the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined his company $2,750 last year for "physical abuse of hogs while conducting research." Bulmer said the settlement agreement covered the violation at the Arkansas farm.

"That was the one and only time we conducted non-anesthetized tissue testing," Bulmer said.

Le Mas, which stands for Law Enforcement Military Ammunition Sales, is based in Little Rock, Ark. The company distributes a "blended metal technology" bullet that will penetrate body armor but not pass through human tissue, Bulmer said.

The "frangible" ammo will bore through steel and other hard targets but will not pass through a human torso. Instead, it shatters, creating "untreatable wounds," a military publication's Web site said.

Using live hogs instead of anesthetized animals or ballistics gelatin was essential to study the immobilizing effects of the new bullets and for follow-up necropsies on the animals, Bulmer said.

"This wasn't just a bunch of guys getting together to shoot hogs," Bulmer told The Spokesman-Review of Spokane. "This was scientific testing."

A portion of the video shows an unidentified Spokane Police Department officer examining a bulletproof vest that had been shot with a Le Mas bullet, but there's nothing suggesting the officer was present for the hog killings.

PETA spokeswoman Holly Mattern said her organization thinks the bullet testing and the killing of the pigs occurred in Spokane County, an allegation Bulmer denied. He said he was present during the one-time testing at a private farm in Arkansas.

PETA attorney Lori Kettler of Norfolk, Va., formally asked Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker last August to file felony animal-cruelty charges against Le Mas; two company officers, Bulmer and President and CEO John Hamilton of Little Rock; and Gibby Media Group of Spokane, which edited the company's promotional video.

Lon Gibby, president of the video company, said his firm didn't tape the killings but did edit video brought in by a client.

Gibby said he didn't know where the filming occurred.