Campaigners have welcomed the move to outlaw the breed they argue is "a clear and present threat to public health", but concerns have been raised it may not be practical and lead to other kinds of dogs being prohibited.
The statistics are unequivocal. There is a reason we don’t usually allow people to own lions and leopards as house pets. No amount of obedience training is going to make them safe. Here is a list of all fatal dog attacks in the UK. Pit bull breeds are far over-represented. I just don’t see how you can look at this data and think, “everything is fine!”
I genuinely can’t grasp why anyone would die on the hill of defending pit bulls. There are countless other dog breeds to choose from, why can’t we just ban pit bulls entirely when they’re demonstrably dangerous?
In some old reddit threads this was talked about a lot, some interesting ideas came up. Of course many people keep these because they are assholes and enjoy scaring others (e.g. drug dealers, gangsta wannabes), but those are also not the ones arguing about statistics online.
The most interesting view in my opinion: these owners are having some kind of victim/martyr complex, enjoy picking the hated breed, so they can be a pit mamma, and show the world, etc. It becomes a part of their personality, so they are special and not like others. When they feel attacked, they are very defensive about it - I used to get abusive “suicide reports” many times I posted or commented smg anti-shitbull.
One reason is that many people see these arguments against the breed as arguments against their own pet. It’s easy to see why someone would ignore the statistics when they’ve had pit bulls that were all sweeter than any other dog they’ve owned. When you start bombarding people like that with statistics and news stories it doesn’t convince them that good old Velma is actually a ticking time bomb, it convinces them that people on the internet just hate their dog for no reason. After all, while pit bulls do attack people and animals disproportionately often, Velma has lived with a chihuahua and a cat for ten years without ever so much as growling, as do the majority of pits.
Then there are comments like “garbage dogs for garbage owners,” and arguments against the breed become arguments against the owner. Do you expect someone to just not say anything when someone insults them?
Because shitheads are just going to move on to the next breed. That’s already effectively what happened with the XL Bully. The dogs are nowhere near the hardest to train and socialize. They just have the street rep.
I don’t understand your point. Are you saying if we ban pit bulls people will choose other violent dog breeds, and those people are shitheads? Or are you saying people who want to ban pit bulls are shitheads and banning pits will open the door to banning more violent breeds?
As I said, dog bite and behavioral euthanasia reports are murky at best, and rely upon nonexpert information. I’m sorry, but a picture graph with no information on how the information was obtained, what verification was involved, etc. is no better than a Facebook share. That’s my point. Information is hard to qualify, quantify, and assess. Trying to oversimplify such a complicated issue is not going to get to the root of the problem.
The statistics are unequivocal. There is a reason we don’t usually allow people to own lions and leopards as house pets. No amount of obedience training is going to make them safe. Here is a list of all fatal dog attacks in the UK. Pit bull breeds are far over-represented. I just don’t see how you can look at this data and think, “everything is fine!”
I genuinely can’t grasp why anyone would die on the hill of defending pit bulls. There are countless other dog breeds to choose from, why can’t we just ban pit bulls entirely when they’re demonstrably dangerous?
In some old reddit threads this was talked about a lot, some interesting ideas came up. Of course many people keep these because they are assholes and enjoy scaring others (e.g. drug dealers, gangsta wannabes), but those are also not the ones arguing about statistics online.
The most interesting view in my opinion: these owners are having some kind of victim/martyr complex, enjoy picking the hated breed, so they can be a pit mamma, and show the world, etc. It becomes a part of their personality, so they are special and not like others. When they feel attacked, they are very defensive about it - I used to get abusive “suicide reports” many times I posted or commented smg anti-shitbull.
One reason is that many people see these arguments against the breed as arguments against their own pet. It’s easy to see why someone would ignore the statistics when they’ve had pit bulls that were all sweeter than any other dog they’ve owned. When you start bombarding people like that with statistics and news stories it doesn’t convince them that good old Velma is actually a ticking time bomb, it convinces them that people on the internet just hate their dog for no reason. After all, while pit bulls do attack people and animals disproportionately often, Velma has lived with a chihuahua and a cat for ten years without ever so much as growling, as do the majority of pits.
Then there are comments like “garbage dogs for garbage owners,” and arguments against the breed become arguments against the owner. Do you expect someone to just not say anything when someone insults them?
Because shitheads are just going to move on to the next breed. That’s already effectively what happened with the XL Bully. The dogs are nowhere near the hardest to train and socialize. They just have the street rep.
I don’t understand your point. Are you saying if we ban pit bulls people will choose other violent dog breeds, and those people are shitheads? Or are you saying people who want to ban pit bulls are shitheads and banning pits will open the door to banning more violent breeds?
The owners who buy these animals specifically because of their street rep will just choose another breed. We need laws about breeding and training.
As I said, dog bite and behavioral euthanasia reports are murky at best, and rely upon nonexpert information. I’m sorry, but a picture graph with no information on how the information was obtained, what verification was involved, etc. is no better than a Facebook share. That’s my point. Information is hard to qualify, quantify, and assess. Trying to oversimplify such a complicated issue is not going to get to the root of the problem.
yawn