Just wanted to post this in a handy place for quick reference when it comes up in other forums again. This aticle clearly explains why a pit bull ban is not the answer.
Why does everybody hate me? by Gina Spadafori
Sometimes I think having no pit bulls wouldn't be that bad a thing, but not for the reasons you might imagine.
If pit bulls weren't around, they couldn't be beaten. Starved. Left chained outside with little protection from the elements. Subjected to ear croppings with scissors and no pain relief. Made to bear puppies with next to no food. And finally, if pit bulls weren't around, they couldn't be tossed dead (or nearly so) into a vacant lot when they come up on the losing side of a dogfight.
For every headline-grabbing attack by a pit bull, there are countless cruelties inflicted on these dogs by the criminal element that's attracted to them. As a person recently noted on a dog-related Web log: "It's amazing how many other kinds of dogs in the best homes bite. It's amazing how many pit bulls in the worst homes don't."
But those who do ... Oh, what fear and anger they cause. It's no surprise, given the horror of recent attacks, that the call to eliminate pit bulls has never been louder. But that call remains the wrong one: Breed-specific legislation is not the answer to the problem of dangerous dogs.
It doesn't help much to argue that the odds of an attack by a pit bull are so low as to be insignificant compared to life's other risks, not in the face of saturation media coverage of every such attack. It doesn't help much to argue that a well-bred and properly raised pit bull can be a better companion than many other popular breeds, based on temperament-testing statistics that show these dogs to be stable and calm. It doesn't help much to argue that many of the pit bulls who are being seized and killed in places like Denver are family pets who have never shown a reason for concern -- and never will.
So let's try this: If you want to be protected against a dog attack, banning the pit bull isn't going to accomplish that goal. That's because every large breed or mix you can think of, and many small ones you can't imagine, have been involved in attacks on humans.
You cannot predict the likelihood of an attack by the type of dog, but you can see clear trends based on other criteria.
Poorly bred, unsocialized, unneutered and untrained dogs are most often involved in attacks. If you want to prevent those attacks, you need to address those root causes. All dogs, not just pit bulls, need to be the focus of legislative, societal and educational efforts geared toward removing the contributing factors behind most every dog attack...
More:
http://www.uexpress.com/petconnection/Gina's site:
http://www.spadafori.com/
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