Legislators have approved a bill that strengthens penalties against hog-dog fighting, but unfortunately fails to sufficiently deal with cockfighting. The continued violations of the law on cockfighting say that more punitive measures are needed. The Legislature will have to try again next session.

Both House and Senate agreed that hog-dog fighting, in which dogs attack wild boars who have had their tusks removed, needed stronger penalties, included property seizure of those who participate in the violent activity.

But the House approved tougher measures on cockfighting, only to see them weakened in conference, reportedly at the insistence of a former law enforcement officer, Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington.

Has Sen. Knotts forgotten that a former Secretary of Agriculture of this state is serving a prison sentence for taking payoffs to protect cockfighting interests? Or that drugs, guns and gambling were in evidence at a cockfighting bust this year in Marlboro County?

Simply viewing videotapes of cockfighting should demonstrate to the senator that the brutal bloodsport deserves stronger penalties so that its roots in South Carolina can be more easily removed.

The House proposal would have increased maximum first-offense penalties from $100 and 30 days in jail to $1,000 and a year in prison. It would have made a third offense a felony, with a maximum $5,000 fine and five years in prison.

But conferees left first-offense penalties in their present inconsequential state, and removed the felony provision altogether. Penalties for second and third offenses were increased, however, and participants could forfeit assets related to a cockfighting event.

Attorney General Henry McMaster, a strong advocate of tougher penalties for bloodsports, was disappointed. "We don't like it, but we can live with it," he told The Associated Press.

Surely the people of Lexington County don't feel as protective about cockfighting as Sen. Knotts appears to be. They should make their opposition known and urge the senator to support needed restraints on bloodsports with which the state shouldn't be associated. This fight won't be over until cockfighting goes down for the count.