Posted on 10/16/2008 10:28:46 PM PDT by Chet 99
Isn't that really the most interesting example!
If the guy next door owns 1 or 5 or 15 firearms, I don't worry about them climbing under or over the fence and killing my kid. He's got to be incredibly irresponsible or a bad actor before I'm going to get worried and before my kid is hurt.
I m struggling to suggest that mere ownership of one of the aggressive breeds (if that's okay to say) is a little more frightening to the parent next door than is ownership of firearms. Yeah a firearm, with a full magazine in it and a little skill behind it can kill lots of folks. The pitbull will maybe kill a dog and a child and then be killed or driven off.
So how to figure in the differences is an interesting problem.
Thank you. That’s the kind of observation that makes me wish I had a Blackstone .... An animal really is different from a firearm.
Absolutely not. That's why the parents belong in prison. They effectively killed their child the same as if they had let him play in traffic or handle a loaded gun. There are all kinds of hazards out there. Property owners have the responsibility to properly mark, enclose and warn others of them, but they don't have the responsibility of supervising their neighbors children. That same child could just as well have scaled a fence and drowned in a neighbors pool. Drowning deaths are far more common than fatal dog attacks, (more than 100 times as common).
The parents of the pit bulls? Just what have you been smoking?
Nope the parents of the toddler who somehow didn’t notice that he had scaled a 12’ fence with dogs behind it. Death by neglect.
The pit bulls killed the toddler, the toddler didn't kill the pit pulls.
Well gee, you just figured that one out?
You’ve been defending the pit bulls, not I.
All sorts of things are dangerous in this world and if you have something potentially dangerous, like a car, pool, dog or gun then you have the responsibility to use adequate safeguards to protect your neighbors, but if someone disregards or violates those safeguards it's not the property owners fault. A 12' high fence I think would meet nearly everyone's standards for what is adequate to contain a dog.
Now myself, I have serious doubts about the veracity of this story. Either something is being exaggerated or left out. First off, there are almost no 12' high fences in residential neighborhoods and they nearly always require a permit. Second, I think it would be next to impossible to find a jury who would convict someone who had the dogs contained in a 12' high enclosure. Third, even if they did convict it would almost certainly be for manslaughter rather than second degree murder.
I also have trouble seeing this as being an incident that would be confined to pit bulls. Anytime you enter the territory of multiple, large dogs with aggressive temperaments you are taking your life into your hands. I could easily see this same thing happening with chows or rottweilers.
And BTW, I do not own pit bulls. I never have and likely never will. They're just more liability than I wish to be responsible for, but the key word is responsibility. People who don't take responsibility for their animals, (or in this case their children), are the problem, not the animals.
Pit bulls killed the toddler.
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