Pit Bull Prohibition
...Bull? I can't speak for everyone, but most of you didn't think of some cute, cuddly, playful puppy. Most of you envisioned a savage, snarling, devil dog, chained to post in an abandoned yard totally focused on tearing you to shreds. Such stereotypes are created and amplified by scandalous media reports which contribute greatly to societies' growing fear of these dogs. Fear implores a responsibility for the government to protect its people. So, Pit Bulls are being killed as a result of ignorance and fear, while dog bite related injuries and fatalities continue to rise because the true cause, irresponsible owners, is overlooked.
The public has been manipulated to believe all Pit Bulls are vicious. The medias' eagerness to report the latest stories, and gain viewer interest ratings, provides us with stories fabricated with inaccurately identified breeds and false facts using exaggeration and unexamined evidence such as:
Cortland Pit Bull Mauling Death WBNG.com (Channel 12) Dec. 9, 2002
[The victim died from blunt force injury. It was later revealed that the victim
was beaten to death by an acquaintance over a drug debt.]
and doesn't fully investigate, or purposely ignores, critical contributing factors specific to the attack (The Breed Issue 3). Sensationalizing individual incidents of dog attacks has generated an
unfortunate and inaccurate public and political perception as to the dangerousness and predictability of Pit Bull type dogs (Fatal 1). Ultimately, this misperception calls for disaster by initiating breed discriminatory laws while failing to address owner irresponsibility as the foundation attacks, therefore allowing for the continuance of dog bites and fatalities to occur.
In response the government adopted Breed Specific Legislation (BSL). This statute is directed toward one or more specific breeds and calls for the restriction...
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