Most sensible post you've made yet! I'm encouraged. Hopefully a real solution will be hammered out that doesn't involve banning any breed and imposing on personal liberties to own dogs or other critters. But again ... all of this empirical stuff doesn't mean a thing when you're walking down a public street minding your own business or, in the case of an earlier FR thread, sitting in your living room, and being attacked or threatened by deadly "power" dogs that can kill a hell of a lot easier than an aggressive dog of a thousand different breeds. There IS a problem of specific breeds that is its own problem independent of how many more kids are killed by swimming pools and toys, etc. I don't care doodly squat about that. What I care about is being able to go for a nice walk in a neighborhood without having to fear for my life from specific breeds of dogs.
Good post of yours, by the way.
Thank you for reading. I too would love to see things changed. Most of the "power" dogs you are referring to are mixes anyway, so if people would just stop breeding for size and aggression, there wouldn't be any bites to report. The real pit bulls are small and people friendly. These new dogs they call pit bulls are mixes, and they are what we see in the news. The real pit bulls are so small (30-60 pounds) that many people mistake them for boston terriers, mutts, etc.