I have been hearing this debate since the days when I identified myself as being a Muslim and I was skeptical about it then and I am skeptical about it now? Do people really care about the welfare of animals or is it another way of trying to demonise Muslims? When European countries banned ritual slaughter in the early parts of the 20th century, it was not done out of any concern for the animal but to discriminate against Jews!
OK. An animal is technically halal if it has been stunned but what about kosher? Jews do not consider a stunned animal to be kosher, so making unstunned meat illegal would still be forcing Jews not to eat meat.
An animal loses conciousness after about a minute and a half of having its throat cut and, I know this sounds like a rather brutal statement, but I would rather an animal be in pain for a minute and a half than alienate 2 million Muslims and Jews in the UK.
I can see why you'd be skeptical but that doesn't mean anyone who advocates such a position is doing so for the purpose of anti-Muslim hate.
Even as a Muslim I avoided halal meat from 2005 (when I first saw a lamb being slaughtered in the Islamic way)- I had been to slaughterhouses, but this was a horrific sight, and it was done in the Islamic way. That's why I oppose it, I do care about animal rights, not exactly to the standard of PETA but issues like this do bother me.
I'm sure others feel the same way.
!Also, in response to your last comment, who said anything about me seeing humans being killed? If your talking about all these beheading videos I watched back in the day, those were distorted videos and not real life situations. I haven't seen anyone die in real life so I don't understand your question.