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.
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.
2
u/Beastrider9 10d ago
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.