The main argument seems to be that we simply don't have a good database of dog bites, and therefore pit bulls can't be worse than others.
We don't have a database, so it can't be proven, no matter how many reports are published by virulently anti-domestic animal activists. Have you ever looked into Merritt Clifton? He's a real nutbag.
In fact, I'd guess the police reports would actually be a better source than hospital records; the police would be more likely to get a dog expert...
These would be the experts that regularly identify Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Mastiffs, Bulldogs and occasionally labradors as 'pit bulls'?
Of course, that's what newspapers do -- they get police reports, and report what those reports say. Yes, we all know media sucks, but their JOB is to get accurate information and report on criminal activity, which would include dog bites.
No, their JOB is to sell papers, or hold viewers attention through the commercial. That's what they actually get paid for; 'reporting' and 'information' are purely optional by-products.
Completely ignoring that dogs in shelters are NOT an accurate reflection of the dog population, and that a common reason for a dog to be in a pen is that a person bought the dog, but the dog was untrainable, or too violent to keep around.
I'm glad people in your area use the shelters responsibly. Many of the owner-surrenders here are abandoned because of 'allergies', 'having a baby', 'leaving for college', 'got bigger than we expected', 'can't give him the time he deserves', etc etc etc.
rse, taking their UPPER LIMIT (10 million) and accepting their total number (70 million), pits would make up less than 20% of the total, NOT a majority (yes, they said "most popular", but that's meaningless when comparing actual numbers, and it's clear they wanted to suggest that the reported deaths and maimings could be explained by popularity).
To remind people, the clifton report suggested 40% of the deaths were caused by pit bulls, which even in the flawed logic of the blog make up only 16% of the population of dogs.
And if 90% of those dogs are owned by uncaring bastards, do you think that might affect the bite statistics? Just curious about that one, since it's hard to get people to register as Uncaring Bastards. :-)
There does seem to be one line of argument that says yes, pit bulls kill and maim more than others, but not because of the dog, but because of the owners.
That argument may be meritous, I don’t have enough facts to know. But the argument is irrelevant. If we presume as that argument seems to that pit bulls are attacking more than other breeds, and we know the attacks are in neighborhoods where children live, it really makes no difference to the mained and killed whether the reason is because the dog is inherently dangerous, or whether the reason is that the dog is more likely to be owned by degenerates.
However, given that in a good number of the televised cases, the owners don’t appear to be degenerates, I’m not sure I’d accept this argument without some sort of study. I’m just saying that if this argument is true, banning pit bulls will STILL prevent the maiming and death.
if we can’t prove pit bulls are more dangerous, we also can’t prove that they are not more dangerous. And I still don’t understand why people who oppose animal ownership would be arguing that most dogs are safer than pit bulls — if I wanted to end dog ownership, I’d be taking the pro-pit-bull side’s argument — “Pit bulls kill people, but so do every either dog — they are all just as dangerous as pit bulls, so we should ban all dog ownership, to protect our children”.
How exactly is the “anti-ownership” side advanced by an argument that only a couple of breeds are actually dangerous?
As to experts, I don’t know how one becomes an animal expert, or why people who have degrees that would suggest they know things would misidentify breeds of dogs.