A Stitch in Haste

Slate defames Staffies and pit bulls.

Diamond is not pleased.

Kip isn't too happy either.

Nothing to add except to emphasize that there is a significant minority view that rejects the "pit bulls and Staffies are the same breed" meme — see here, here and here. But that's secondary.

No breed of dog is "predisposed to violence." All breeds of dog are predisposed to training. Show me a violent dog and I'll show you a dog that was trained to be violent (or not trained at all). It's that simple. Any opinion contrary to that basic premise is ignorant. Any law contrary to that basic premise is irrational and unfair.

And if you don't agree, then you can take it up with Diamond — assuming you can get her to stop licking your face.

UPDATE: Say Uncle suggests a revision to "No breed of dog is predisposed to violence toward humans." I can live with that, but I might also add "...toward humans or other dogs." Evolutionarily speaking, dogs are pack hunters. As such their only instinct is to attack prey, not members of the pack.

The basic idea still holds. Violent dogs are either trained to be violent or are not trained at all. The nebulous concept of "breed" has absolutely nothing to do with it.

As the owner of a (not-really) pit bull, I always get a very modest shudder whenever there is a story of a mauling. The most recent report, of a 12-year old boy in San Francisco killed by his own family's dog inside his home would be, I was sure, the latest excuse for (essentially irrational) calls to ban the breed.

I'm unconditionally opposed to breed-specific legislation, for the same reason I oppose curfews and other pre-emptive prohibitions: It is fundamentally unfair (and economically inefficient) to ascribe unlawful behavior to an entire class based on the anecdotal evidence of a few members of that class. (Compare: I do believe in leash laws, and in DUI laws, because the risk is not anecdotal but demonstrable — an unleashed dog is a risk, a person who has "just two beers" is a risk; an honors student who wants to see the late showing of Episode III is not — without more — a risk, a family pit bull in the confines of the home is not — without more — a risk).

Anyway, back to the recent San Francisco mauling, we now have more details:

The mother of a 12-year-old boy killed in his own home by one of the family's two pit bulls says she had been so concerned about one of the dogs that she shut her son in the basement to protect him.

Maureen Faibish said she ordered Nicholas to stay in the basement while she did errands on June 3, the day he was attacked by one or both of the dogs. She said she was worried about the male dog, Rex, who was acting possessive because the female, Ella, was in heat.

"I put him down there, with a shovel on the door," Faibish said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. "And I told him: 'Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me."

Nicholas apparently found a way to open the basement door.

You read that right — she locked her kid in the basement rather than the dogs.

It's easy to ban pit bulls — how do you ban a jackass parent? She was the lethal animal here, not the dog.

Other thoughts at Moderate Voice and aTypical Joe.

The local hack politicians of Denver have joined the cabal of uneducated activist legislators who place inflammatory anecdote above reasoned logic by slaughtering "pit bulls" --

A few weeks ago, two police cars and two animal control vehicles pulled up at the home of Stef'ny Steffen looking for her beloved 4-year-old pit bull, Xena. Seven officers hauled the animal off to the city shelter, putting her on death row.

Xena became an outlaw after Denver won a court fight and reinstated one of the toughest pit-bull bans in the nation. Since May, more than 380 dogs have been impounded and at least 260 destroyed — an average of more than three a day.

Dog owners are in a panic. Some are using an underground railroad of sorts, sending their pets to live elsewhere or hiding them from authorities. City officials would not estimate how many people might be violating the ordinance.

I've blogged about breed-specific legislation before, and have little to add regarding this latest disgrace.

I will give the Denver dog murderers credit for one thing, however: unlike many other municipalities that have engaged in breed-specific legislation, Denver readily admits that there is actually no such breed as "pit bull" --

Pit bull typically describes three kinds of dogs - the American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier and the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. But Denver's ban applies to any dog that looks like a pit bull. The animal's actual behavior does not matter.

No word on who gets to decide whether a dog "looks like a pit bull" or what appeal process is available. Sounds to me like that is a question of fact to be decided by a jury.

As I've hinted in other contexts, I'm not a big fan of civil disobedience, except in the most extreme circumstances after every conceivable avenue of redress has been exhausted. I'm a strong believer in the value of the moral high ground.

But I'll tell you this: the only way the government would be able to take Diamond away from me, after I acquired her legally and lovingly, would be to pry her from my cold dead hands.

Or, to put it in slightly less melodramatic terms: At this point in my life I would never consider leaving New York City for another job or a higher salary, or even for a boyfriend if I had one. But I would leave, without hesitation, to protect Diamond from a "pit bull looking" ban.

How many hearts are being broken for no valid reason, just so the local hack politicians could satisfy their lust for the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling, so they could say they "did something"?

And of course I swear that I will never set foot in the City of Denver so long as they slaughter innocent dogs based only on their looks.

Bloggers expressing their indignation include Ken Foster, Cliffs of Insanity, Touring the Zoo, Matt and Jess, Confessions of a Nobody, Power2thePeople, Where the Dolphins Play, purple america, Objective Justice.

I hope every blogger with a dog (or with a heart) will pick up this meme and blog about it.

Here is a wonderful, and all too rare, example of a law being declared unconstitutional because it did not satisfy rational basis review, in a context that is not entirely irrelevant to me:

We agree that the protection of property and people from injuries by dogs is clearly a legitimate governmental interest. Nevertheless, this interest must bear a rational or "real and substantial relationship" to the conduct being regulated by the statute, in this case the mere ownership of pit bulls. The state statutes and city ordinance were all enacted specifically to regulate pit bulls because of their allegedly inherently "dangerous" temperament. Since the trial court found that the pit bull, as a breed, is not inherently dangerous or vicious, then the interest in protecting the health and welfare of citizens is no more rationally related to pit bulls than it is to any other breed which has a potential to inflict injury on humans. ... Once the finding is made that a specific breed does not inherently represent a greater danger than any other breed, a law that regulates that breed on the basis of mere ownership is arbitrary, unreasonable, and discriminatory.

In other words, a court can't simply pretend that a legislature knows what it's talking about -- regarding breed-specific legislation or anything else -- when the court determines that it clearly doesn't. Rational basis review does not mean blind deference. A court is entitled, when confronted with objective and demonstrable evidence, to say to a legislature: "You are simply mistaken."

Meanwhile, unless this ruling by an intermediate appellate court is overturned by the Ohio Supreme Court (which heard oral arguments on the case yesterday), pit bulls in Toledo will have greater "rational basis" protection than gay couples have in New York or Washington State. Go figure.

The case is Toledo v. Tellings, 2006-Ohio-975 (6th App. Dis., March 3, 2006) (PDF - 28 pages)

(Via How Appealing.)