Interesting. I wonder how many pitbull killings there are in the Netherlands (or Dutchland, as the case may be) per capita compared to USA#1.

"lease" -- amusing typo. Can I pay you to take your pitbull out for a short walk?

I don't hope that unreasonable people will make reasonable decisions.
Reasonable people don't need the law to disuade them of owning a pit bull they already know that making your kid kiss your pitbull on the mouth to prove a ******ed stance on Facebook is a bad idea because you have plenty of evidence that pitbulls are dangerous and need to be treated as such.
Your idea might even increase the number of terrible owner who are attracted by what your law can reinforce.
The idea that you can have that badass dog, inspire fear and be the bad ass owner that can control it.

Leash of course, sorry for the typo.

According to the legal literature there are zero pitbull killings since 1993 (when three kids got killed) in the Netherlands. There have been bite incidents of course, and a study among cases at the court of Rotterdam showed that 21% of those cases were pitbulls. That made it the number one biting breed. Because a dog specialist is involved in the case, it's sure they are pitbulls: mixed forms aren't counted as pit bulls. Researching the police database for all biting incididents in The Netherlands, pit bulls come up at 63%.

As to why The Netherlands don't have pitbulls killing people, I'd say we lack the dog fighting subculture and puppy mills to really **** the breed up. And the government really tried to ban the breed, and even made sure they were made infertile after the killing of three kids.

It became illegal to breed pitbulls also. That might have something to do with it.

P.J. O'Rourke had a comment on a similar point some years back, in which he said "It's unlikely you're going to convince cocaine dealers that they should be driving Volvos rather than tricked-out Benzes." While I appreciate that sentiment, I think it's probably wrong insofar as the criminal laws go. I do think criminal laws deter conduct, and I see no reason why that principle wouldn't apply here. But I have no clinical or empirical evidence to support my view, and I haven't researched it to see if that sort of data is out there. So we can agree to disagree on that one.

Positive and negative incentives work on people depending on the understanding of the cost vs benefit to the individual.

It won't work on everyone obv.

One thing that always stands out to me in this regard is a notary who has their stamp stolen is responsible for fraud the thief commits with it. They are charged with keeping it safe. Meanwhile I know of people who have had more than one gun stolen from their vehicle they left on the seat on different occasions. If they were considered responsible for what happens with that gun even at the level of a notary, they might act differently? Idk. If the owner was not considered a bystander in a dog attack but charged with the responsibility for the damages and forced to pay insurance to ensure they would be able to take it, it may change move the needle.

While pit owners may have suspect reasoning skills, if the consequences of their bad choices begin to outweigh the benefit some of them may abandon their "need" to choose a pit. I mean I don't know what the penalty is for other dangerous pets--big cats or wolf breeds, but I don't see them being paraded around by idiots near the playground.

Also, Howard was never submitting that the punishment of the owners would make up for the attack. That said, I while it would not fix my loss I would rather the owner face some kind of consequences than none if my loved one is hurt by their negligence.

the problem is the pressure is on the killing part not, having a dangerous conduct.
If they have to keep the dog muzzled allways on a leash, possibly in a crate at home when not on a leash or whatever reasonable measure that would make having a pit bull reasonnable, ofc it become a burdern and has to be weighted when deciding if you get one.

Drunk driving is an offense, not only killing while driving drunk.
you wouldnt allow people to be careless with weapon regardless if they kill or not.

The problem with that kind of stuff is people overestimating themself and underestimating risk since it s still pretty low.

I would be perfectly happy with a set of laws that made driving while intoxicated somewhat more lenient but greatly increased punishment for any damage caused while driving intoxicated. It seems to me that the goal of laws should be to minimize the consequences of bad conduct. If I drive three blocks slowly to the local 7-11 while drunk, it's not likely to hurt anyone. And although it's unlikely, I might take that risk. Driving drunk on the freeway at high speed in the rain is much more likely to cause a death. But the penalty for both is likely to be the same. That makes little sense to me. That is IMO best done by allocating the consequence to the person making the decision to engage in bad conduct.

JT has characterized my position correctly. Nothing can "make up" for the loss of a loved one. All I'm trying to do with these proposed rules is minimize harm. It's a mildly unknowable empirical question whether my solution will do so, and I don't know any more about it than the next guy.

Well, i mean, the thread is pretty good evidence of how delusional pit bull owners are.

"Here are a bunch of pics of my childhood pit bull. She was awesome and never bit anyone and would never do such a thing! Lol, well i guess there was this one time where she tore some kid's face off but he made eye contact so what do you expect lol. Good times."

Sure, but there is a line where deterants work on more people than they don't. The drunk driving example is good because since it became much more expensive and inconvenient if you are busted it curbed the behavior quite a bit. I know several repeat offenders who just don't drink at all when they are going to drive now because it hurt them too much. I'm sure they serve as an example to more moderate behaving folks as well. There are loads of people who continue to do it, but 100% compliance is not a requirement for something to be worth pursuing.

When I was kid people didn't wear seat belts, and when it became law I knew plenty of people who refused. Eventually it wasn't worth it and they started.I'm sure there are those who don't still but they are small minority.

Only a small percent of drunk driving causes damage, why would reducing the personal risk to driving drunk reduce the amount of drunk driving or reduce the amount damage done by drunk drivers?

It's the massive increase in penalty if a drunk driver causes injury or damage that will influence behavior. I guess my thought is that we should tailor the penalty to the exact behavior that we want to discourage, which isn't drunk driving per se; rather, it's drunk drivers causing injury. Similarly, nobody cares at all if someone owns a pit just by virtue of that ownership, but cares deeply if the pit injures someone.

That sounds a lot like bull**** someone who drives buzzed a lot would say. I think the simplest decision we're asking a drunk person to make is drive drunk or not, not try and calculate the odds he's going to get in a wreck this time when they drive home.

I haven't been behind the wheel with more than a single drink in me for more than a decade, perhaps more. My views have nothing to do with my own personal circumstances.

Please stop posting.

Thanks, Yak! You da man!

So since this thread has a handful of people who make a good % of the posts, could I please ask one of you to point me to a post, or research or whatever, that differentiates pitbulls from other dangerous dogs i.e staffy, german shepherd etc? No agenda here, it'd just be nice to see the evidence and I'm sure people here have posted better stats than what my googling will achieve - so many clearly biased results from both ends. From what I understand it's harder to stop a pit once the attack has started, and of course much more attacks but I haven't seen anything convincing that there's a higher attack rate (there are more pits than any other working dog right?).

Update on living with the dogs because what the hell, I'm bored. I've been walking them every day since the last post of mine, and I definitely feel the responsibility a lot more now. The much bigger sweetheart of the two (definitely the sweetest/sappiest dog I've met) is the main worry, because she's anxious and when other dogs start **** her anxiety seems like it could maybe be problematic. They've both lived with other animals (I found out they lived with a rabbit for a year and 2 cats!), but I would still never let her off the leash around other dogs, and by extension ever, because there might be a dog close by I'm unaware of. (edit: to be clear, I'm quite confident that nothing would ever happen with these dogs, but when the stakes are so high my confidence means jack ****)

Walking them is still great since they get so many compliments. The whole 'nobody's gonna **** with me' thing was a novelty that is pretty much gone now, it just sort of feels like an extra blanket of unneeded security. A friend was talking about how sometimes you don't notice the hum of a fridge or fan until it's gone, and similarly I think I didn't realise how often I was sizing people up or feeling slightly uneasy until I was on the other end of these dogs. Like, situations where you know nothing's gonna go down, but your body goes 2% into adrenaline mode or something.

But yeah, after feeling the responsibility, I wouldn't own dogs like this. Potentially when I'm retired and have raised multiple dogs and have a ton of time to dedicate to doing it right. I guess I'm lucky to be able to live with such fantastic dogs without having to worry what they'll be like with my friend's kids in a few years.

two things: pit pulls aren't "working dogs" if by that yuo mean the dogs included in clubs "working groups" and "staffys" are under the pit bull umbrella.

Oh ok, I assumed since this thread is so full of people like Suzzer being like 'no breeds other than pitbulls do this one specific thing!' that it'd be about the actual American Pitbull Terrier. So then I'll ask again but this time for evidence concerning the pitbull umbrella, which I assume is pitbull terrier, staffordshire bull terrier, american staffy, american bulldog, dogo argentino?

My bad re: the working dog label. Just replace that with the 'dangerous dogs', or whatever dogs are up there in terms of attack rate.

34 U.S. dog bite-related fatalities occurred in 2015; pit bulls contributed to 82% (28) of these deaths. Pit bulls make up about 6.6% of the total U.S. dog population. Rottweilers were #2 with three kills.

From 2005 to 2015, pit bulls killed 232 Americans, about one citizen every 17 days, versus rottweilers, which killed 41, about one citizen every 98 days.

http://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-sta...fatalities.php

Those numbers are atrocious.

Plus six dog breeds each contributed to one death, including: German shepherd-mix, golden retriever-mix, Rhodesian ridgeback-mix, lab-mix, husky and mixed-breed.

To put it in perspective wrt to overall number of dogs, there are about 3-5 million pit bulls in the U.S., 3.5 million German Shepherds and 2 million rotties, so pit bulls kill way out of proportion to other dangerous dogs. Labs are the most popular dog and golden retrievers are number three. I couldn't find numbers for them, but assume they're around GSDs.

Right, we know for sure that pit bulls have by far the most fatal attacks. I think it's pretty reasonable to extrapolate that to serious attacks. A toy poodle may or may not be more likely to bite you but the difference between not breaking the skin vs having reconstructive surgery is the main issue for me. Risky vs hazardous

As an owner of 2 pit bulls, I hate to post this but I also got to be honest about the reality. I keep my dogs completely isolated from other dogs and always leashed outside of our house and backyard.

This happened in Atlanta this morning. 1 boy dead and another girl in critical condition

http://www.ajc.com/news/owner-arrest...f7NIuNHGqqjAJ/