All horse slaughter closed down in Mexico and Canada today

In America, we believe in freedom and free markets. In Europe, y'all believe in a system of government control and regulation that is repulsive to most Americans. We don't have helmets laws for our riders, or training requirements. We don't live in a place where you can't swing a dead cat without having it cross 3 national borders. We don't want to pay European prices for our food or gas or horses or houses or anything else.

Europe runs on a system that a lot of city dwellers in America approve of - a tightly regulated place. Unhappily, our cities in America often want to force that stuff on the rest of us, just like Europe does. I'm not telling y'all how to live, but I'm not interested in you telling ME how to live. So I think we ought to be looking at other markets. Asia and Africa aren't likely to complain about American beef, nor about American horsemeat.[/QUOTE]
No country is without laws. Just because the EU has imposed laws on food products doesn't mean that the US is any more free in other ways.
The helmet law was very much pushed by insurance and healthcare costs - people with brain damage cost more to take care of long term. I don't understand what you mean by 'training requirements'? If you mean driving tests then here in CT I have to take the same sort of theory and driving test as in the UK PLUS spend 8 hours in a classroom listening to some lectures on safe driving that your kids do in school - we don't do that in the UK and the US refuses to accept that the UK has modern driving standards. You can move to any part of the UK and still use the same driving licence but if I move to another state here I have to take another driving test.
There are many states here in the US that have bans on various products that other states don't have, a lot of these things are horticultural based but some are just down to materials they are made of
Almost every town has its own zoning laws, they can control how many horses you can keep on your property and how you keep them in terms of stabling/shelter. I can't allow my horses here to graze within 10 feet of my own boundary fence.
In the UK you can put up as many sheds on your tiny garden as you like - here in CT I have to get planning permission to do that regardless of how much acreage I have.
The EU chooses to try to protect its food sources - a lot of that is also about controling things like Foot and Mouth disease, anthrax, mad cow disease. Its also reduced the amount of stock that were stolen to put through slaughter yards.
I would be a lot happier to see a slaughter yard in every state in the US so animals don't have to be put through long journeys

Jaydee, you don't have to take another driving test if you move to a different state. Yes, you have to get a driver's license for the state in which you live, but as long as your old license is still current you'll just switch it for the new state.

I'm all for slaughter houses in every state. Heck, I'd be happy to see one in every COUNTY. We have two small ones within easy driving distance of my property, so I know where I can take any animal I want slaughtered and processed. Will they do a horse? I imagine so if I can prove I'm the owner, but they probably won't let it be known publicly that they'll process horses because of all the crazy, 'no horsies to slaughter ever!' folks.

I live in an agricultural area so the residents have a better idea of where their food comes from than regular city dwellers, but we do have a few citiots who have moved into the area. They like to complain about the farmers firing up their tractors on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Don't those RUDE farmers know it's the weekend and we like to sleep in?! Gah!

I'd love to see them right next to the auctions so horses have minimal travel time.

I would not. People can be scumbags and I wouldn't want someone's horse to be stolen and carted off to slaughter by some moron looking for a quick buck. I probably will never be truly pro slaughter unless there's a system to be absolutely sure that every horse killed doesn't have someone crying their heart out looking for him because some jerk stole him.
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That's an issue with not enough checks being made in the process, not enough ID on horses etc.

And frankly it could happen now, they just ship further.

To me the theft argument would be much like saying that no car repair shops should exist because many mechanics are crooks.

The EU does not protect its food source they protect the farmers livlihood.
American beef can and is raised hormone and drug free. All our cattle are processed by local slaughterhouse and we sell directly to restuarants that advertise organic beef.
Even if the beef pork and chicken processed here was grown to EU standards the farm subsidies given to farmers in the EU would ahve to be increased to compete with the US. Period.
The ban being lifted is a prime example of that. Once the flow of cheap, abundant horseflesh was cut off and wwhile the demand is so great in the EU. Horse flesh prodessed in Mexico which would not be regulated and an bribe here and there will get you a vet check.
The us can supply the whole of europe with organic beef if they lifted ban. We have the space, the cattle, and the means to do so. Shalom

Every horse slaughtered by American (North& South) means should have someone crying for them.
As I've been called crazy a few posts up I can say things like that.

I stand corrected on the driving test thing!!!!!
We can now also buy alcohol on a Sunday in CT - as long as you do it before 5pm. Haven't figured out yet what difference the time makes!!!
We live in a rural area though not isolated but it attracts loads of New Yorkers and Celebs who have holiday homes here and also complain about the mess 'country folk' make. If Bambi's family trash my Veg plot or my fences I dare not shoot them in case they go and die on a neighbouring property who encourage them onto their places because they look so cute - dropping ticks everywhere and spreading Lymes disease. In the winter they starve to death and get hit by traffic as they wander from one feed place to another then cost the town money to get the carcass shifted!!!
Gone off thread
If there were slaughter yards in each county the people who are currently putting horses into auction yards to sell for slaughter would take them direct and make more money out of them (no commission) It would also help reduce the number of sales to unsuspecting people who are buying these cheap horses thinking they will work out OK for riding and then finding out they are crazy or totally unsound.

Yes you are right - it is mostly to do with protecting the livelihood of EU farmers. I fact a heifer slaughtered when its 'bulling' will have more natural hormones in its meat than one that's been given them artificially.
However Europe is struggling economically as much as anywhere else and taking money away from farmers there and giving it to US farmers wouldn't help anything - how would US farmers feel if the reverse happened?
At present there is no shortage of horsemeat to meet demands in Europe - they have the same problems with unwanted horses as the US does plus countries like France, Italy and Belgium breed horses specifically for meat. France is actually eating less horsemeat now by choice then it ever has - horsemeat now is only about 1% of meat consumed there. It would be better if - as someone else suggested - horse meat was used in pet food over here. That market is huge. I honestly can't see that it matters what happens to a horse once its dead.
If the public in general don't like the idea of horses being bred for meat then some restrictions need to be put in place to regulate the numbers of low end horses being bred.
The largest number of horses going for slaughter are 6 years and under and unhandled.
Natisha I agree with you. Every horse that dies should have someone shedding a tear for it even though it was done with the best intent - because the horse was being let go to spare it any more pain. But as long as people are breeding horses indiscriminately this will never happen, there are sound healthy horses out there - hundreds of them - that are going straight from the land they were born on to an auction and onto a slaughter yard.

I agree with all of this. I do worry about the use of drugs in horses and what impact that could have on the beings that consume the meat. All that said, why waste the meat in a world where people/animals are starving.

I have said it before but I will say it again, stop breeding indiscriminately. The "hundreds of them" that you refer to are likely more like "thousands or tens of thousands" I cringe when I see the people with their poorly put together horses all excited because there horse is going to have a baby. I just keep thinking "there is another one for the slaughter houses" The whole thing is heartbreaking.