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Statistics are a b*tch:

2010 Dog Bite Fatalities

33 U.S. fatal dog attacks occurred in 2010. Despite being regulated in Military Housing areas and over 500 U.S. cities, pit bulls led these attacks accounting for 67% (22). Pit bulls make up approximately 5% of the total U.S. dog population.3
In 2010, the combination of pit bulls (22) and rottweilers (4) accounted for 79% of all fatal attacks. In the 6-year period from 2005 to 2010, this same combination accounted for 71% (129) of the total recorded deaths (181).

The combined breakdown between the two breeds is substantial. From 2005 to 2010, pit bulls killed 104 Americans, about one citizen every 21 days, versus rottweilers, which killed 25 Americans, about one citizen every 88 days

http://blog.dogsbite.org/2011/01/2010-us-dog-bite-fatality-statistics.html

Mojitojoe, I'm not some sort of pit bull fan (I think they're ugly) but why are you, as a conservative, advocating more government regulation of private property, which is what dogs are?

I totally get where you're coming from about being mad that your tenants broke their lease by bringing something onto your property that you forbade and thereby forcing you to evict them. Good call. It's your property, you set the rules, and that's your right — and if they broke that rule, they will probably break others. Same for your insurance company; they're a private business and if you want low rates you need to follow rules they believe will minimize risk, whether perceived or real. That's legitimate. If I own a high-dollar sports car I can expect to pay higher rates since a certain percentage of drivers will decide to treat the interstate as a racetrack, merely because they can, and therefore insurance companies have to charge higher rates to everybody owning that type of car or maybe refuse to insure some types of vehicles at all.

But that's up to them. I don't want government telling private landowners or private insurance companies what to do with their business decisions.

Does that decision make sense, however?

Your statistic shows that 33 fatal dog attacks happened in 2010, and of those, 22 were by pit bulls and four by Rottweilers, making 79 percent of fatal attacks by those two breeds.

That sounds awful, except that there are probably tens of thousands of pit bulls in the United States, and if 22 were involved in fatal attacks (were any of them defending their own property, and therefore legitimate attacks?) that is a minuscule percentage of the pit bull population.

It seems obvious that most owners of potentially aggressive dogs don't raise them to direct that aggression against anyone except maybe a burglar trying to get in the house. A well-trained German Shepherd is capable of doing as much if not more damage than a pit bull if commanded to attack and trained to do so. What's wrong with saying that owners need to maintain control of their dogs, and suffer the penalties if the dog does something wrong?

Especially in dangerous neighborhoods, having a well-trained dog can serve the same purpose as owning a gun, and when the resident isn't home, a dog is a good alternative to a security system because it deters crime, not just alerts the police once the break-in happens. There's a place for an aggressive dog, as long as the owner knows how to control it.

If owners won't or can't keep their dog under control, that's a whole different ball game.