You people are really missing the point here. I'm not so much comparing the Rotweiller and pit bull to a Lincoln Navigator or Galil assault rifle as I'm comparing the owner of that (apparently unsupervised) pit bull and rott to the driver of the Navigator driving down the sidewalk with a fifth of Jack Daniel's in his blood stream, or the owner of the rifle who's sporadically launching a few rounds out his front window because he keeps forgetting what happens when he pulls the trigger.
The point of my comparison is, (I'll say it again) the potential injuries you faced were greater by virtue of the fact that an irresponsible owner owned a pitbull and rott instead of a poodle. Likewise, your potential injuries would not have been as great if the loaded SUV driver had been on a mountain bike instead, or if the rifle owner kept pulling the trigger of a single shot, blackpowder kentucky rifle. That's my only point. If the owner of the rott and pit had been responsible and the dogs were secured in a chain link kennel, or being kept in a locked house, you would have been no more threatened by them than you would have been by the sober operator of a Navigator, observing all traffic laws, and driving past you on the street, or by the rifle owner insuring that his weapon was properly cleared and locked in a gun safe.
To try to reinforce my point...I know that dogs have minds of their own, and that sometimes, even a responsible owner may lose control of them, and when that happens a big, 'mean' dog is a greater potential risk than a smaller breed. Well, sometimes the brakes give out on vehicles, even for a responsible, sober driver, and when that happens, a large SUV or truck will potentially cause more death and destruction than a motorcycle or smaller compact car. Sometimes the safety or sear mechanism on a firearm will mechanically fail, even when handled by a responsible shooter, and when that happens the potential for death and destruction are greater when it's a larger caliber weapon, and/or one with an autoloading mechanism. Granted, even at these times, they objects are not acting of their own accord as is the case with a dog, but my point is that certain vehicles and certain weapons are potentially more dangerous when their owners lose control, and to ban them simply as a result of that fact is ridiculous; and that is precisely the point many people make with regards to certain breeds...we need to ban them because they are potentially more dangerous when improperly handled or when their owners lose control. If you can demonstrate to me that that is NOT the argument being put forward by many anti-pit bull, anti-gun or anti-suv groups do so, but I think you'll have a hard time doing so, and I'm only trying to point out that intellectual consistency and honesty dictate that when the same tortured, emotional rationale used to go after a certain type of vehicle or weapon is employed to go after a certain breed of dog, the counter argument need not be any more sophisticated or altogether different than the counterpoints presented for the former.
...my point is that certain vehicles and certain weapons are potentially more dangerous when their owners lose control, and to ban them simply as a result of that fact is ridiculous...
Again, I don't advocate banning them. The truth is, however, that UNLESS carrying onconcealed firearms becomes legal on public property, or UNLESS owners of "potentially more dangerous" dogs ADMIT that there's a real problem and then do something to resolve it rather than go into denial, your worst-case scenario of seeing breeds being banned may come to pass. It's annoying for those of us who have experienced the problem and who are freedom advocates like yourself, when we see "responsibility" forced on innocents rather than the real source of the problem.