U.S. Rep. Paul Broun's primary challenger says Broun was "absolutely wrong" to vote against banning videos of people stomping on small animals.

Broun was one of only three congressmen to vote against outlawing so-called "crush videos" in 2010. He defended the vote during a joint interview with opponent Stephen Simpson on WGAU 1340 AM this morning.

"I think the people who produce (crush videos) ought to be in jail, and the people who watch them ought to be in treatment," Broun said.

But all 50 states already ban crush videos, so it's not the federal government's role, the Athens Republican said.

Simpson, a retired Army lieutenant colonel from Milledgeville, said Broun is out of touch with voters on the issue. The federal government, not states, should prosecute crush video makers because they're engaging in interstate commerce, he said.

"The whole idea was to prevent it from being sold on the Internet," he said. "Only the federal government can do that."

Broun cast his crush video vote as part of a larger effort to drastically shrink the U.S. Department of Justice. Originally, the U.S. only had three federal crimes, he said: treason, piracy and counterfeiting.

He also accused Attorney General Eric Holder of selectively enforcing the law, for example by refusing to prosecute Black Panthers for intimidating voters or defend a federal gay-marriage ban in court.

"He's supposed to uphold the law," Broun said. "That's his job. He refuses to do so."

The candidates also sparred over Broun's recent crusade against the Transportation Security Administration. He has called for the TSA director's resignation and for airport screeners to focus on people who look or act like terrorists.

That's an ineffective strategy because terrorist organizations could use a pregnant woman, the elderly or children to blow up an airplane, Simpson said.

Otherwise, the two Republicans mostly agreed on repealing the federal health care law, reforming immigration through border security and a guest worker program, doing away with the Dodd-Frank banking regulations passed in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse and closing military bases overseas.

Broun and Simpson are running in a newly-redrawn 10th Congressional District running from Augusta to Gwinnett County and Athens to Milledgeville.