TheAgitator.com
There Oughtta Be a Law
Wednesday, May 11th, 2005This one makes me angry. Because one wayward pit-bull with a bastard owner attacked and killed a little girl, the city of Denver has banned the breed, and is rounding up and killing every pit-bull in the city.
Breed-specific legislation is overly emotional, ineffective, and inhumane. The entire city of Denver ought to be ashamed of its public officials. Pit-bulls make up a disproportionate percentage of vicious dogs that attack humans and other dogs because people who breed vicious dogs happened to favor pit-bulls (actually, that’s not even true any more. Rottweilers surpassed pit-bulls a few years ago as the breed with the most-reported dog-on-man attacks). You can train a poodle to kill if you’re so inclined. Ban pit-bulls and dogfight enthusiasts will simply pick another breed.
On the other hand, the vast majority of pit-bull breeders are responsible, and there’s nothing about the breed that’s inherently mean, vicious, or incompatible with children. Hundreds of them are about to be euthanized anyway.
The end of the article is telling:
What happens, I ask, when all of the Denver pit bulls have been rounded up and put down?He would not want to be a Malamute, he said.
A male Malamute attacked and killed a 7-year-old girl in Fruita last Saturday night.
“It is not the breed,” an unsmiling Bill Suro said.
How very sad.
UPDATE: Jacob Grier has more.
Stupid politician tricks
Fellow dog lover Radley Balko points to a sad abuse of government power in Denver, CO. City officials are rounding up pit bulls for extermination and searching the houses of known and suspected owners. The ban was passed in 1989 after a pit bull killed…
Denver Pit Bull Genocide
Wait! I have a sudden bad governance inspiration! Couple your pit bull confiscation with this lunacy, and it’s own an illegal pit bull, lose your house!
Dog days of Denver
So a couple of blogs I read have commented about the abhorrent pit-bull ban in Denver.
Jacob Grier, at Eternal Recurrence has a decent post.
Radley Balko, over at The Agitator has a good post.
Both of these gentlemen do a supurb job of showing how si
Doggie Genocide in Denver
A while back, Denver banned politically incorrect dogs and that ban was suspended by state legislation restricting breed specific legislation. Denver sued to reinstate the ban and won. A court ruled that Denver was, basically, not subject to the stat…