The Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010, Pub.L. 111–294, 124 Stat. 3177, enacted December 9, 2010, was a United States law that addressed the banning of depictions of cruelty to animals to satisfy a crush fetish. The bill, H
Background
The act revised the version of 18 U.S.C. § 48 which had entered into effect on December 9, 1999 was an unconstitutional abridgment of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech by the Supreme Court. The previous law, placed into effect by Pub.L. 106–152 enacted on December 9, 1999, aimed at banning the publication, sale, and ownership of so-called "crush videos", which are films that feature a person or another animal crushing or trampling another smaller animal to death. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that the law was too vague and broad in United States v. Stevens, and, in an 8–1 decision, it nullified the 1999 law.