And I dedicate this list of 368 people killed by pit bulls in the USA to you:
Complete with photos of the deceased and links to those pesky media, police, and/or animal control reports. Don’t be fooled by the interviews of the pit bull owners.
More on U.K. rates (where there has been a long standing BSL): U.S. rate is pretty stable at 3.1/100K. In the U.K. quite a few more bites …
Yes, after years of BSL rate of serious hospitalizations range from more than twice as high in the U.S. to 7 times as high.
Yes, they’ve realized that focusing on the breeds detracts resources and attention from doing that which actually would make more of a difference.
Be sure to stop on the way, to get some leaded paint, and a 1972 Ford Pinto. Text us while driving to give us updates, while smoking Camel filterless cigarettes,
Check CraigsList before you go – you might also be able to get a deal on a macaque monkey. Never mind the fact that the media and the CDC have reported that 80 to 90 percent of all macaque monkeys are infected with Herpes B-virus or Simian B, a virus that is harmless to monkeys but often fatal in humans. You may not have heard word of Herpes B-virus or Simian B virus - but its on everyone’s lips.
The media and the CDC just have a hard on for macaque monkeys. Just tell them to “suck macaque”.
Oddly enough, for die hard (no pun) drop-side cribs fans, you can still find them on CraigsList – even thou no manufacturer or retailer can make or sell these as of 2011(banned) --yet they only killed 32 children from 2000 thru 2011.
By comparison, 20 children were murdered by dogs last year alone in the US and ALL by Pit Bulls.
Add a drop-side crib to your shopping list. It will allow for easier entry for your new pet.
To prevent your future children or grandchildren from being the victims of limb amputations from your new pet, you can still buy Thalidomide in 3rd world countries. We banned it here, after a number of baby’s were born without all of their arms and/or legs. Yep, you guessed it. You can google archive to find thousands of media reports from the 1960’s hinting that there just might be a correlation between Thalidomide and newborns with stumps. But don’t be fooled – the media had it in for the German pharmaceutical company Grünenthal. It too, was suspected to be a conspiracy back in 1960 – the people who used it, swore by it. They even slept with it. In fact, they couldn’t sleep without it. They insisted it was something else causing these problems. Sound familiar?
Those brilliant folks in Spain, kept using it long after it was banned.
http://www.euronews.com/2013/05/09/thalidomide-allegedly-sold-in-spain-after-ban/
but then, those same folks in Spain recently dropped their pit bull ban.
Y’know, you say “Ford Pinto”, but ANY car is literally hundreds of times more deadly than a pit bull. There’s one auto-related fatality per 8000 cars in the us (250,000,000ish passenger vehicles, 32,000 fatalities yearly) and around 38 TOTAL dog-related fatalities (just assuming they’re ALL caused by pit bulls) for the 3,500,000 million estimated pits.
So there, I should sell my two family cars and buy 24 pit bulls, and I’ll be marginally statistically safer.
This is why we’re ignoring your stats–the number of dog bite deaths per year is so insignificant as to not justify ANY action under any reasonable standard of risk analysis. You are literally at more risk from lightning strikes.
Also, does that link seriously go back to 1858? A few hundred deaths since 1858 is supposed to convince me to pass laws against something?
I have now had 6 dogs in my life… two blonde Cocker Spaniels (prone to fighting, drew blood a few times, even though opposite sex. Had both for 16.5 years each, he was just 6 months younger…) followed by two Golden Retrievers.(Maggie looks exactly like Dogbert in that picture…) I adored my Goldens, they were just the best dogs in the world, and I was sure I’d only have Goldens for the rest of my life. But when one of them died and I learned how irrationally rejected black dogs are, I decided I had to be open to a black dog, and I ended up with Preston, who has turned out to be the most amazing dog I could ever have hoped for, while also being extremely different in personality than any other dog I’ve ever had.
As the years have passed with just us two, and I met more and more pit bulls, learned more about them, saw so goddamn many being abused and neglected… well, here I am. (best eyebrows ever!) And if anyone had told me this five years ago, I would have laughed in their face. Because I like “cuddly” dogs. (That’s one of my issues with Preston, he’s not really very cuddly, he mostly likes to have his rump pounded more than anything, and merely tolerates my need for more tactile intimacy.) But that’s just the thing I would never have expected, that pits are incredibly cuddly! Even more so than furry dogs, their close hair is so silky, they have so much skin exposed…and they are so squishy in certain spots! Plus they are kissy kissy kissy (i’ve read they are among the most kissy of all dogs), super physical, love to be closeand are just so much more rewarding in that respect than I would have dreamed in a million years. Delicious! And I even love the way she smells, which is no longer like a puppy (best smell ever) but is also completely different from the way any other dog I’ve ever known smells. She’s just yummy!
Of course, all this physical intimacy between me and Zusje is messing with Preston’s head, so suddenly at the age of 6 he’s getting up on the bed, putting his head on my body, getting fully beside me to sleep… all stuff he would never do before. Jealousy!
Did you ever read “Innumeracy”? I think that was the first book to introduce the masses to the irrational way we make decisions, talking about what we fear vs. what we should fear based on statistics. Terrific read.
If I had a kid and bought a pit bull, I would consider myself an irresponsible parent for pretending that stat after stat are all wrong .
Great anaolgy. Would you give your kid a car that has defects? Would you put your kid under a tree in a lightning storm ..or would you take precautions,.?
Then I hope to heaven you never get your child a pit bull.
Problem solved.
[quote=“DSeid, post:470, topic:657969”]
Why would any one marry a Black man when statistics show that Black men commit more murder and manslaughter in this country than any other group? Heck I could go for pages listing gruesome details of murders in which the murderer was a Black man.
You do, I hope, recognize immediately why that is a goofy asinine statement. Why some here fail to recognize that the conclusions drawn from the reported as Pit stats are equally stupid is beyond me.
Lets use your analogy which is illogic…black men are men. Black criminals are within the class of. Black men. Dogs are dogs. Pit bulls are within the class of dogs. The question would be, would you ,marry ablack men who abuses children if he had that reputation would you buy. Pit ill if it has the reputation for hurting children?
Of course not.
But this might:
In the last 8-year period of the CDC study (1991 to 1998), pit bulls averaged 2.8 deaths per year. From 2005 to 2012, the most recent 8-year period, pit bulls averaged 18.8 per year, an increase of 670%.
Ever going to answer the questions I’ve asked you? (See post #463 if you need your memory jogged.)
Including but not limited to how that apparent lower number in the 8 year CDC study of 91 to 98 than in the last 7 years of media reports is explained in your way of thinking? Has the breed suddenly mutated to become more vicious?
Prejteach2, huh?
Using voice recognition software with a mouthful of caramel corn.
You’re missing the analogy. ANY random car, even the safest, is approximately 12 times more likely to cause a fatality than any random pit bull.
If you drive your child anywhere, you are being either hypocritical or staggeringly bad at risk analysis.
And if you can explain that to me in a way that blames the breed for randomly becoming more vicious AS A BREED in the space of maybe 10-20 generations at most, as opposed to an explanation that is more centered on the nurture, bad interbreeding, and poor training of the breed as it became more popular among tough idiots, then sure–that might be a relevant concern.
The numbers AS YOU PRESENT THEM, with a relatively few attacks for a long time and a sudden surge in the last decade, track nicely with the rising popularity of pit bull types as both a tough-guy dog and a dog that is “backyard” bred to supply to tough guys. This is why I keep coming back to the idea of “are they registered, papered ASTs or APBTs?”–no one is arguing that breeds have tendencies, but what I AM arguing is that pit bulls have become “more deadly” far too fast for it to BE a breed tendency, therefore it must be a factor of either ownership/training or unselective breeding with dogs with pre-existing bad tendencies, and more likely than not the former.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Yeah, gee, it’s almost as if you know a little something about genetics and breeding and have used that knowledge to inform your opinions.
That… is a question, alright. I guess. But let me ask you, is our children learning?
Interesting analysis from the American Veterinary Medicine Association -
Statement from the National Animal Control Association
The American Academy of Pediatrics Dog Bite Prevention hand out (pdf):
Again, why are all these professional organizations in such denial that an easy quick fix to serious dog bites exists, just ban all dogs that look even vaguely like Pit Bulls?
(C’mon, post 463, just a few questions, I am honestly curious to what your take is.)
Dog ownership is a serious responsibility. It has benefits and it has risks, like almost everything. Smaller dogs bite more often (and are more threatened by small children, whereas bigger dogs are less easily spooked) but their bites are less likely to cause serious harm. Deaths from dog bites are extremely rare but non-zero. Having a dog in the same household as young child, 4 and under, is especially risky; under no circumstance should a young child be left with any dog without supervision. Some dogs do seem less bite prone than others, these include the ever popular Lab and Goldens, but even they are not without risk: the tiny risk can be made even smaller by owning such a dog but it is still non-zero and constant vigilance is still required. Despite the stigma attached to the Pit breed groups there is in controlled studies, as per above, no evidence that such is justified as a characteristic of the breed.
UPDATE:
Pit bulls are at 16 fatals, and 2013 isn’t half over. That means they will kill 32 in 2013.
In the last 8-year period of the CDC study (1991 to 1998), pit bulls averaged 2.8 deaths per year.
Project murder count for 2013 is 32, an increase of 1,142%
In one single year that percentage went from 670% to 1,142%.
Pit bulls are in fact, an epidemic. per definition:
“occurs when new cases , in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience”
Further, given that the number of entire nations banning pit bulls is growing, this would make pit bulls pandemic (international).
Cougar, you don’t have to keep trying to prove to us that you do not understand statistics, science, genetics, or the power of controlled studies versus anecdotal evidence. We totally believe you!