Yet it can be done - A good 15 years ago, a little girl was being mauled by a pit bull somwhere in SW Atlanta (I forget exactly where, but a black neighborhood) and a neighbor went into his house and got a .357 shot and killed the dog. The dog owner - a woman - who had been previously watching her dog tear into the child without doing anything ran and attacked the guy who shot the dog screaming "Don't hurt my dog." So he shot her too. She was not fatally injured, and ended up seving a six month jail sentence for assault on the guy who shot her dog. More proof (as if any more were needed) that pit bull owners can be totally irrational about their pets.
Fifteen years ago would be the very beginning of the 'pit bull' problem. 1999 is the first year I find reports of a pit bull killing anyone, and even then, Rottweilers were the principal killers. For years, Rottweilers were the main killers, followed by German Shepherds. Before that, it was German Shepherds.
It wasn't until 2004 that pit bulls caught up with Rottweilers as the principal breed(s) causing human deaths, and since 2005, the three 'pit bull' breeds and mixed-breed pit bulls are overwhelmingly the most dangerous breed (with Rottweilers number two) for human deaths.
When breeding and ownership of American Staffordshire Terriers was in the hands of reputable breeders and non-thugs, that breed was not a problem.