No I think it is troubling that people assume that it is the breed. If you knew anything about pits, you would know that indeed they can be dog aggressive but as a whole are not human aggressive. These are two seperate things. I also find it troubling that you do not understand the intense love that people can have for their pets. My dog is very much loved by everyone in our home and is treated like a child.
Distinguo:
First you wrote:. If someone killed my dog simply because he is a pit bull, it would be as if someone murdered my son in cold blood.
Then you wrote:My dog is very much loved by everyone in our home and is treated like a child.
You have strong feelings of affection and concern for your dog. I'm all over that. I've always said that I have no use for a man who doesn't cry when his dog dies. But it's just not the same as a child dying - or if it is, there's a problem.
In my former work I watched babies die (and grownups too). It's not the same. It's just not the same.
I'm assuming that you're not hoping your dog will carry on the family name, you're not sacrificing to make sure that he can have a good college education and a little help when he and his wife get their first mortgage, and a little more for their first puppy, your first grand-puppy.
I'm hoping that when he dies, and I hope it's before you do (while I've explained to my daughter that the rules are: I get to die first), you don't see the shattering of a dream of his earthly happiness persisting after you die. If he were diagnosed with a usually incurable brain-destroying epilepsy (as my daughter was, but we were in the lucky group) and you were to feel what we felt, I'd dare to say that your affections were disordered.
So the distinction I'm drawing is between one's feelings for a dog or a child and the reality of a dog and a child.
If that's troubling, I can live with that.
I say again: if you "control for the people", I bet Pits are more dangerous than many breeds. The same person who would turn a pit into a danger to the community would turn a Lhasa Apso only into a bigger joke than it already is. An attack teacup poodle just isn't as dangerous as an attack pitbull. SOME of the danger belongs properly to the breed. The interesting part of the question is how much. I kond of like the idea of the owner being legally responsible for the acts of the dog, not only in a civil liability case but in a criminal case.
Around here a Rottie scalped a little girl. I'd like to think the owner would go to jail for assault #1 with a dangerous weapon and aggravated battery. As a matter of fact he got off entirely. If I don't make sure my fences are good, your kid gets to pay for it.