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"...I find it's the uneducated scum bag low life types that try to demonize something they don't understand for the most part..."

Why don't we try to keep it civil, shall we?

I will assume, to be civil, that you aren't calling me an "uneducated scum bag low life type" (because, you certainly would not be so much of a wimp to not come right out and directly say what you mean, right?)

I would hope you would do that in the same spirit as my viewpoint that there exists a not insignificant population of reptile owners (though, as I was careful to point out in my posts, not all reptile owners) who are the kind of "uneducated scum bag low life types" who own reptiles or pit bulls as a symbol, and think nothing of letting their pit bull run wild, or leaving their reptile alone in a cage with a blanket over it with an infant next to it an a crib.

You obviously are someone who owns a reptile and took exception to the factual statement that there are a significant amount of people who own them who shouldn't. I will assume you are one of the educated, knowledgeable and skilled people who own reptiles.

Let's put aside the statement of knowing about things, and I will accept that you know more about reptiles than I do, and, given your use of the statistics you supplied, I know more about statistics than you do. We can do that without an acrimonious exchange, right?

Just for the sake of argument, how many human to reptile encounters are there each year in the USA as opposed to human to dog encounters in the same time frame?

According to an annual survey by The American Veterinary Medical Association statistics, in 2012, there were about 70 million dogs as pets in this country. Can we assume each one of those dogs interacts with anywhere from two to four people at a minimum every day? Lets say that an "encounter" means waking up to the animal and coming home to it, just to be on the low side. To be fair, lets count people passing a dog and petting it, or friends coming over to your house and hugging the dog. Lets call it five encounters a day, two by each owner, and maybe one with a friend or stranger while walking the dog.

Lets call that 350 million human to dog encounters a year in the USA alone, and most of those are intimate encounters (extended petting, hugging, etc) and many are by non family members, even complete strangers, though this is likely understating it.

This same organization gives statistics on reptile ownership in 2012 as well, and even though it breaks them down into snakes, turtles, lizards, and such so we will lump all reptiles in together since your 0.43 statistic does not specify, which would give about 5 million reptiles owned in the USA. I will assume that fewer people have an encounter with the reptile in that same family group where the reptile is taken out and handled, maybe three times a day. Let's say four to be generous. And only rarely is the reptile having intimate encounters (hugging, extended petting, etc) with complete strangers.

Let's call that 20 million human to reptile encounters a year, which is likely overstating it.

If you were to normalize the populations of dog/human encounters that result in fatality to the reptile/human encounters that result in fatality given that there are far more humans who interact with dogs, as opposed to humans who interact with reptiles, that will change your 0.43 statistic quite dramatically upwards, and that is completely leaving out the concept of the nature and type of the interactions.