Those news items sicken me. Truly, being responsible for your own actions is not very important, as juries keep rewarding a$$holes who blame others for their misfortune(s).
That family of the sadistic pr!ck in Little Rock would have received a HUGE settlement if he had shot my dog with a pellet gun. His hospital bills would have been enormous, if he survived, and it surely wouldn't have been from wounds inflicted by the dog.