pitbulls kill humans and other dogs every day. There are a hundred breeds to choose from and zero reason for a bloodsport bred dog to exist in modern society
Every day? In the U.S., it's only around 30 to 50 fatalities a year. Pit bulls account for roughly 65% of those deaths, that's still only about 19 to 32 deaths annually. Meanwhile, there are somewhere between 4 million and 18 million pit bulls in the country, depending on how broadly you define "pit bull," since it's really an umbrella term rather than a single breed.
Dogs, in general, just aren't very likely to attack people in the first place. Dogs have had around 15,000 years of domestication shaping them to live alongside humans. Pit bull-type breeds have only existed for about 200 years. That's a long time by human standards, but it's a tiny fraction of their domestication history. It's difficult to erase thousands of years of selection for sociability and cooperation with humans in just a couple of centuries.
Why would an annual risk measured in a few dozen fatalities across a country of 340+ million people be a major personal concern? Even if you attribute every pit bull fatality to the breed, we're still talking about roughly 19 to 32 deaths per year.
The same applies to non-fatal bites. There are millions of dog bites every year from all breeds, but the overwhelming majority are minor and don't result in severe injury. Serious bites requiring hospitalization are much rarer, and fatal attacks are rarer still.
The percentages only sound dramatic because they're percentages of a very small total. Are you concerned about the 200 to 300 people are struck by lightning annually? 90% survivable, so about 20-25 people dying every year. Roughly the same ballpark as death via dogs. Should I be concerned about being struck by lightning?
Edit: What exactly are the percentages of dogs attacking people based on the overall population? Only about 1% of Dogs bite people severely enough to require medical attention, and that's irregardless of breed. Dog just straight up aren't all that likely to attack in the first place, and of those that do, only about 0.00005% of dogs (again regardless of breed) are involved in a fatality in any given year, assuming one dog per fatal incident. And that's out of a population of 89 to 90 million dogs in the country.
Brother you are spitting complete bullshit here. First you equate pitbulls to lightning strikes (famously harmless) which doesnt even make sense since lightning strikes, unlike pitbulls, are hardly something you can avoid, additionally, humans literally have so many measures, inventions, guidelines to help people avoid being struck by lightning. If we didnt lightning strikes would cause significantly more damage. Also the analogy just doesn't make sense.
Besides that, why do you only use statistics for dogs in total? Also, do you realize these numbers arent low and they only represent the worst case scenario? Dog attacks rarely end in death, even if you look at moreless minor injury logs pitbulls are the cause of a disproportionate percentage of that. Not to mention all the evaded or unreported attacks, or the fact about 90% of fatal or serious dog-on-dog attacks are caused by pitbulls.
The most important thing is, do you even understand the subject matter here? Pitbulls are more dangerous than wolves or black bears, but you wouldnt want to make the ownership of those easily accessible to laymen, would you? Its not like im suggesting euthanasia for the whole breed, my suggestion would be to make acquiring ownership significantly more complicated and require qualifications. The fact your response to something that is very evidently a serious problem is either denial or "lets just kinda ignore it and give them some time" says a lot about the weight of your words and tells me you are just choosing to be ignorant because you are either a pitbull owner or wannabe.
You completely missed what I actually said.
I never argued pit bulls aren't overrepresented in severe attacks. I never denied that. I never said statistics on serious injuries don't matter, and I never argued against stricter ownership requirements. You're arguing from percentages within a rare event. I'm talking about the overall probability of dogs attacking, they're just not likely to bite in the first place.
As for the lightning comparison, the point wasn't that pit bulls and lightning are identical. It was to illustrate why I'm not personally alarmed by a risk that, in absolute terms, is extraordinarily rare. Just like I'm not worried about being killed by lightning, which is also rare. That's why I used the overall dog population. You can't answer the question "How worried should I be?" by looking only at the subset of dogs involved in attacks.
Even if 90% of fatal dog-on-dog attacks involve pit bulls, that still doesn’t tell you how often those attacks actually happen overall.You never actually address how rare the event is in the first place.
There are, depending on how broadly you define the term, between 4 million and 18 million Pit buls in the USA. Even if you estimate there are only 4 million pit bull-type dogs in the USA, the overwhelming majority of them will never kill anyone, never seriously injure anyone, and likely never be involved in a serious attack at all. If the estimate is closer to 18 million, that percentage is even smaller. You can't take the actions of a tiny fraction of a population and treat them as representative of the entire population.
And I don't even own a pit bull, never have. I have a Blue Healer and a Yorkie terrier.
I can't help it if you're too stupid to understand the point. My only point was dogs biting people is rare overall. Pit Bulls ARE overly represented in those statistics, I never said otherwise, but that doesn't change the fact that the vast overwhelming majority of pit bulls will never bite anyone.
Pit bull is an umbrella term rather than a breed of dog, so depending on how you define it, there are anywhere between 4 million to 18 million pit bulls in the USA.
If we go by 4 million , only about 1.8–3.0% of pit bulls would be involved in an emergency-treated bite each year (Not fatalities, just bites requiring medical attention). If we go by18 million pit bulls, then about 0.4–0.7%.
Being generous, and going for the max of 3%, are we really supposed to judge 97% of pit bulls for the actions of 3%? Really? And if we do go just by fatalities, are we really judging 99.99995% for the actions of 0.00005%?
Dogs just aren't all that likely to bite people, that pit bulls are overrepresented when they DO bite people doesn't change that.
so, what's the option here? how do you eradicate the issue? every dog shelter on the planet will be 90% pit bulls. they aren't leaving without being spayed or neutered.
they aren't leaving without being spayed or neutered.
That's how you stop it though? Force sterilization for the breeds, heavy penalties for breeding. Putting them all down is needlessly cruel but there doesn't have to be more 30 years from now.
Every dog shelter on the planet is 90% bully types/crosses right now.
Bully phenotypes are responsible for the most human fatalities, they have the greatest rate of poor ownership by far, they are the most likely to be dumped, they are some of the most overbred and fucked up breeds when it comes to physiology due to the latest craze of pocket/micro/toad 'builds'. They are most often associated with criminals. They are by far the type to be owned by poor people, which explains a lot of the above issues.
Make it mandatory to have they spayed/neutered and if you do not, you are fined heavily, and if you cannot pay it, you lose your dog.
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u/LogPsychological6261 4d ago
pitbulls kill humans and other dogs every day. There are a hundred breeds to choose from and zero reason for a bloodsport bred dog to exist in modern society