I personally knew a family with little children who owned a pit bull.
I “saw” the kids play with her and rough house.
Never did the dog do anything other than watch me very carefully in case I made a move toward the children she disliked.
It’s the owner not the breed but they have been ruined by poor breeding and cruelty.
It’s a no win proposition to defend them in today’s climate regarding them.
At the turn of the last century they were America’s favorite dog.
No kidding...
http://buzzlog.yahoo.com/buzzlog/94449/pit-bulls-surprising-past-nanny-dogs
that article is bogus. You can tell the photos are photoshopped. Yahoo fell for it.
I do think SOME breeding programs have resulted in mean dogs of many popular “mean dog breeds”- might be true in some areas where there are a lot of idiots that want a mean dog and breed for that. I have only been around pits bred and raised to be nice dogs and that is what I have seen- nice pits. Whether or not one is nice probably has to do with breeding and raising. Most of us can’t imagine breeding two mean dogs of any breed to each other but there are idiots that do and other idiots that want to own them.
Banning pits would not solve any of the issues because the idiots would just find another large type of dog and again breed mean dog to mean dog and the problems would still be there.