Carney just sentenced some innocent kids to death or disfigurement
John Carney – Taking on the big problems of the day.
Governor Carney Friday signed a bill that blocks local governments from banning or restricting someone’s ownership of certain breeds or mixed breeds. Pit bull terriers are most often targeted by “breed bias.”
“Big or small, regardless of the breed – of course, there are a lot of mixed breed dogs in the state – it just makes them all on a level playing field for adoption and a great life,” Delaware Humane Association Executive Director Patrick Carroll said.
The bill was cosponsored by Representative Charles Potter Jr. and State Senatir David Sokola. It makes Delaware the 21st state to ban a form of breed discrimination and basically allows Delawareans to own any breed of dog they choose.
Whatever. Potter, Carney and Sokola will soon have blood on their hands.
Q: Why do I always read about pit bulls in the news?
When a pit bull attacks, the injury inflicted may be catastrophic. First responders, such as police officers and firefighters, understand this as do members of the media, who are quick to report these attacks. Ongoing social tension also keeps pit bulls in the news. The pit bull problem is now over 30-years old.11 In this time, most lawmakers have been “too afraid” to take breed-specific action to correct the problem. Due to this failure, horrific maulings continue to make headlines.
About half of all media reports regarding pit bulls involve police officers shooting dangerous pit bulls in the line of duty.12 Since the late 1970’s pit bulls have been used extensively in criminal operations for drug dealers, gang members and other violent offenders. The pit bull terrier is the breed of choice for criminals. This choice is directly linked to the pit bull’s selectively bred traits of robust jaw strength, a deadly bite style, tenacity (gameness) and a high tolerance to pain.13
2016 Dog Bite Fatalities in the US by Breed
Because of their jaw structure, pit bulls have been trained by scum to utilize their physical attributes. But it’s not the pit bull, it’s the owners. They aren’t any more disposed to violence than many other breeds.
Sanctuary cities for pit bulls! Who’s with me?
Uh, as long as it’s not MY city.
“But it’s not the pit bull, it’s the owners.”
Simply false. All dogs have a bad day once in while, but when a pit bull has a bad day people end up maimed or dead. It is the jaw muscle power, and high tolerance for pain. In short, it is the breed, not the owner.
So, what your quote is actually saying is that abusive pieces of shit are attracted to pit bulls over other breeds of dog? And maybe the correct policy is that abusive pieces of shit shouldn’t be allowed to have a dog of any kind?
Absent an awful lot of human-generated trauma, pit bulls (and boxers and Staffordshire terriers, who are often caught up in these bans) are people-loving goofballs. In fact, my golden retriever is far more protective than any of my boxers have ever been. If I were an abusive piece of shit, she would be a real threat to anybody who walked by my house. Note, too, that the second breed in that graph is the Labrador retriever, usually touted as a good family dog.
If the cops were truly worried about pit bulls being a public safety hazard, or even a particular hazard to cops, Schwartzkopf would have buried this bill. And that the media seizes on stories of pit bulls attacking people really speaks to the sensationalistic tendencies of the media rather than anything about the breed.
Dog racist!!!
“Segregation today. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever”
I don’t know what you’s have to do to a Lab to turn it into a killer. I do know what you need to do to turn a Pit bull into a killer… nothing. They are born to kill.
…it’s not the
pit bullgun, it’s the owners.@jason: Really? How many pit bulls have you owned? How many have you raised to support your claim that you have to do “nothing” to make one a killer?
@puck: I expect pit-bull bans to be just as effective as gun bans — that is, unless it covers the entire country, it’s worse than useless.
Good luck concealing a pit bull in your waistband.
“Schwartzkopf would have buried this bill”
I think in the population of scum attracted to owning killer dogs, cops are probably overrepresented.
@puck: Your point being? Yes, guns and dogs are different. It’s trying to solve the problems they cause by banning them that are the same.
“@puck: I expect pit-bull bans to be just as effective as gun bans — that is, unless it covers the entire country, it’s worse than useless.”
Not true. If they are regarded as dangerous by the state (and all the evidence says that they are*) an owners liability insurance is more expensive and it will be more difficult for the owner to defend against a wrongful death suit.
This idiotic defense “But (my dog bred to kill) is different, he has never bitten anyone” is like someone saying “My time bomb is different. It has never killed anyone.”
Actually, without knowing the population of dogs in the location, it might simply be that pit bulls are overrepresented in the dog population. I don’t see too many golden retrievers downtown.
If you check the records, you’ll find that most of the attacks you reference are not on strangers but on residents of or visitors to the home keeping the dog.
Bans on things are the intellectual refuge of the lazy. I hear conservatives calling for bans on this or that all the time. They usually work as well as our country’s ban on recreational drug use does.
Cops are far more likely to own German shepherds than pit bulls. They’re just as scary-looking, and have that K9 unit association to mark their status. Also they’re used to training them.
Alby, I agree about the general uselessness of bans. I’m talking about the breeds that are clearly dangerous (like pit bulls) being designated as dangerous by the state.
@jason: It’s not like we would apply this ban in any logical way. Like every idea, it will be different in execution than in the planning, and I’ve seen how this one goes — it’s applied only ex post facto, meaning the death and dismemberments happen anyway but the penalty is greater. As with guns, people will call it “accidental” when they mean “negligent.” And the dogs are as guilty as the guns, but unlike guns, they can suffer. Ask Michael Vick.
@aurochs: When K9s retire, they often go home to live with their handlers.
“Bans on things are the intellectual refuge of the lazy.”
Good point. We can definitely count on the
gunpit bull owners to be more responsible with their weapons.No, we can’t. But the same people who are irresponsible with guns (including a bunch of felons who aren’t allowed to legally own one) won’t act responsibly with a dog or obey a dog ban, either.
In an open society, bans don’t work. You can have an open society or ban lots of things. You don’t have to be conservative to be autocratic.
Jason still hasn’t addressed the core statistical problem here. His original quote said that unsavory elements are attracted to pit bulls as guard dogs. These people are going to go to breeders known for breeding human-aggressive dogs (which is NOT breed standard, and reputable breeders will breed AGAINST this trait). Those breeders specifically serve this market. The owners are then going to encourage human-aggressive behavior.
Notably missing from the conversation are boxers and Staffordshire terriers. They have similar temperaments, facial structure, etc. But neither one appears in either the graph in the OP or in the CHOP analysis. Why is that?
Without context, none of these numbers tell us much.
@aurochs: The problem with all these breeds is the same one you get with the popular breeds like Labs — people who have purebred dogs (“he’s got papers”) and no knowledge of the science behind genetics allow dogs that are purebred but flawed breed indiscriminately. The flaws are often physical, but can be temperamental as well.
Aggressive individuals crop up in every breed. As you note, responsible breeders rectify this.
Where to start… first off, I recognized the paragraphs under the heading “Q: Why do I always read about pit bulls in the news?” as coming from one of the notorious pit-bull hater websites that purports to provide objective info re this type of dog. They provide cites and it kinda looks legit, except the info is very much cherry-picked and is far from objective or representative of the totality of stats and studies on this topic. Shame on you, Jason, for being so block-headed as to purposely spread this kind of misinformation.
Second, “pit bull” is not really a breed at all, in the way AKC breeds are. Pits are extremely varied genetically. They are often fairly large, strong dogs. Like pretty much all large, strong dogs, they are capable of causing severe injury. ALL dogs will attack under the right conditions, from my experience, this is a dog thing more than a breed thing. There are a lot of studies showing that pits have better-than-average dispositions, and their bite force is actually less than some of the other larger breeds. Their jaws are wider than those of a German Shepherd, but the force of their bite is not significantly different. You’re quoting old-wives tales, patently false, about some magical jaw strength of pit bulls. Do your homework and stop spreading this crap.
What you don’t show here is that a large majority of serious injuries from dogs are carried out by male dogs who have not been neutered. Owner responsibility (or lack of same) is the key thing here. Same goes for training and knowledge of how to recognize and deal with the individual dogs who turn out to be aggressive (and this occurs in all breeds, by the way). Most dogs, including pits, are not.
There is a problem with irresponsible dog owners, true. Wilmington is filled with pit bulls and pit mixes, and I’d guess a fair number of the owners are irresponsible, including the ones who, a couple years ago, turned out a little 5-month old boxer pit female to wander the streets with two partially-healed broken legs. She’s my Daphne now, a beautiful, loyal companion dog who has never bit anyone and when not out walking with me in the park and sleeping belly-up on the sofa, plays harmlessly with the two now-adolescent kittens she rescued from our hedge last summer.
I am so appreciative of Faithful Friends Animal Shelter, here in Wilmington, who takes in and finds good homes for these innocent creatures. And for our state lawmakers who did their homework and voted based on facts and real data, not the hateful, slanted stuff posted above.
Seriously, euthanizing dogs based on their appearance and jaw width makes about as much sense as making hiring decisions based on skin color. It’s pretty much the same mindset.
“found that almost 51 percent of the attacks were from pit bulls”
That’s a fact, but the conclusion is a logical fallacy (cum hoc ergo propter hoc). Correlation does not imply causation (as everyone well knows). Canines reflect the care, treatment and training they have been given by their owners. Many pit bull owners do not provide the appropriate treatment and training for their dogs. Since, pit bulls are responsible for the majority of fatalities and serious injury to humans one should conclude that some humans should not be allowed to have pit bulls, unless one wants to entertain the thought of ridding the world of all pits.
I also believe that should apply to having children as well. Some humans simply should not be responsible for the care of any living creature – and that includes the Amish and their Godforsaken puppy mills.
And no, I don’t have a pittie. I have a Havanese that gets bullied by my cats.
All these rationalization are fine. I’m sure your ticking time bomb will continue to malfunction in the ways you’ve trained it to malfunction. …until it doesn’t.
It is also a logical fallacy to count up “attacks per breed.”
Hundreds of thousands of children are shot each year. Most are shot with squirt guns or Nerf guns. Only a small percentage of children who are shot are shot by firearms.
Who in their right mind would compare “shootings by Nerf gun” with “shootings by firearms?” Yet that is what we do when we compare dog “attacks by breed.”
Pit bull attacks are not comparable to other dog attacks.
I like (sarc) how people compare dogs to guns (inanimate objects). Don’t you need a special license to own a gun? Cars are another one. You need a license, and tests and only after a certain age. But yet ANYONE can get a pit bull. MAYBE people who want these types of dogs should have to follow the same set of rules? Especially if you are going to compare the two.
“MAYBE people who want these types of dogs should have to follow the same set of rules? ”
A higher set of rules perhaps. Since these dogs have been bred for aggression and to inflict maximum damage [a simple fact nobody here disputes BTW], owners should be vetted.
“Since these dogs have been bred for aggression and to inflict maximum damage [a simple fact nobody here disputes BTW], owners should be vetted.”
I dispute it. Most are bred to make money. You keep ignoring the rearing and training that go into making a dog aggressive.
@BB: It’s called an analogy. I brought it up to show that banning something, animate or inanimate, doesn’t work. And if we were going to ban one or the other, a gun ban would save a lot more lives.
Don’t ya’ll remember that pit bull that ripped that girls arm off in Newark a few years back?
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/insider/extras/2016/12/01/pit-bull-mauling-launches-newark-8-year-old-two-year-trek-save-her-arm/91613870/
Aggression is certainly teachable, but Even the Pit Bull loving SPCA says that aggression is a trait that has been bred into Pit Bulls. I’m not ignoring that fact that their are bad actors, I’m saying the bad actors and good actors alike are working with animals that have been bred, for over 200 years, to kill.
Like a loaded gun, when they fail to kill they are malfunctioning, and it seems that there are people willing to bet their children’s lives on the fact that they can keep them malfunctioning over the course of the dog’s lifetime.
Alby: Hell, an alcohol ban would save more lives. There were 61 alcohol-related traffic fatalities in Delaware in 2015. According to that graph, there were 40 dog bite fatalities in the whole country in 2016. Except we tried an alcohol ban. It made things worse.
Jason: Are you really referring to a pit bull as “malfunctioning” when it’s not killing something? Is my golden retriever “malfunctioning” when she isn’t swimming out to retrieve a duck I just shot? Have you *ever* had a pet of *any* kind? Judging by that language, I’m guessing not.
I have a Cairn Terrior named Rags who was nearly killed by the type of dog that was bred to kill, and whose owner though he had rewired 200 years of programming.
Needless to say I have a lot more experience with these animals than you do.
My wife has a son who was nearly killed by a shepherd mix. At the time she owned a Staffordshire terrier, and has photos of the dog and her son cuddled up on the couch. She went on to adopt a boxer, and we’re looking at adopting another bully breed dog at some point. We don’t have time to give a shepherd the activity they need, otherwise a shepherd would be on the table.
You are making claims on HUMAN aggression based on DOG-aggressive behavior that you’ve experienced. They’re not the same thing by a long shot. Neither me nor my wife have seen or owned a boxer (or Staffie) who was NOT dog-aggressive. That’s a problem with all these breeds, and one that owners should always be aware of even after best-effort training.
But not one of those dogs ever showed the least bit of aggressive behavior toward a human. They were all goofballs around people, actually– very excited to greet anyone who came to our house. They CAN tell the difference.
That pit bull attacked your dog. S/he did not attack you.
I’m fine with my toddler playing with a loaded, cocked pistol. It hasn’t gone off yet.
“But not one of those dogs ever showed the least bit of aggressive behavior toward a human. They were all goofballs around people” until they killed someone.
You read nearly this exact line in every news brief after some child is killed by these breeds.
It is the bred in size, biting strength, high tolerance for pain and aggression that make these dogs inherently dangerous.
You’re not even trying to hold an honest conversation.
Jason is right because Jason is right, and fuck all the dissenting opinions from just about everybody who’s posted on this thread. Jason’s not actually going to respond to any of it. He just wants to shut it down with one-liner emotional-appeal bullshit.
I can’t respect that. Not one bit.
Opinions? Were these breeds not bred to win in a dog pit? Were they not descended from breeds with traits suitable for killing bears?
The selective breeding for bite strength, size and disposition make them inherently dangerous. This isn’t a matter of opinion.
If I have an opinion on the matter I would say that in my opinion, people shouldn’t be tricked into thinking these breeds are suitable pets for families when they clearly are not.
I’m sorry to hear about that dog attack your family has suffered. The trauma of something like that leaves deep scars.
I have brought up several questions about the data you presented. Me and another poster have brought up concerns about your quoted source. You have not spoken to any of this. One person has directly challenged your assertions about jaw structure and bite strength, which you continue to make without even acknowledging the challenge.
I’m pissed because you’re being curt and dismissive to nearly every comment that opposes your viewpoint about these dogs without even addressing them. That’s not a conversation, let alone a good-faith dialogue.
I’m contrasting this with the conversation I had with Alby this past week on the death penalty. We disagreed but still had (what I felt was) a respectful discussion. And that’s a real hot-button issue. What’s happened here is the polar opposite of that.
It is obvious to me that you have some identity tied up in defending this breed, so I don’t see the profit in doing your homework for you.
Keep your loaded gun in your toddlers car seat. I’m sure it will all be fine until it isn’t.
By way, it was a shepherd mix that attacked your family. A shepherd mixed with a Havanese?
There you go again. No attempt at dialogue. Just shutdown tactics.
BTW, don’t go lecturing me about “having identity tied up in defending the breed” when you were the first one to bring up personal experience.
When you can’t accept the basic premise that dog breeds have behavioral and physical traits, then yeah… I’d say you defense is wanting.
Maybe we should allow pitbulls, but have mandatory background checks, a 5 day waiting period, special permits, canine training and handling classes, and a stipulation that they have to be locked up at night, and or muzzled. Common sense regulations.