There are moments when I am driving down the road listening to the news and I need to start screaming at the radio. I’m aware of how dumb this is, it’s not a two way transmitter (no matter what the foil hat brigade tries to tell me).
They want to ban certain dog breeds in Minnesota. I wonder how often I can use the word “asinine” in a post. Let’s not find out.
Banning specific breeds will do nothing to solve the problem. Nothing at all. The third paragraph of that article even illustrates that this really has nothing to do with facts or statistics, but with knee-jerk reactionism…the kind of knee-jerk reactionism that an uneducated constituencly loves. “You saw something troubling on a 45 second newsbite stuffed between the weather and jokes about hairstyles? You say they used scary graphics? Well, let me get right on that!”
Banning specific breeds for dog bites is a lot like banning alcohol completely for drunk driving deaths. These dogs themselves are not violent, their owners are. Their owners do not take the time to properly train their dogs, the owners may even be trying to make their dogs violent. You cannot blame the dogs, you must make stronger legislation to hold the owners responsible.
We do not blame the car or the alcohol, we blame the person who shrugged off responsibility.
And I say this even though I live in a neighborhood where every month I see a new wanna-be thug and their pit bull puppy walking around. I have seen guys jabbing and poking their dogs as they played so that they would become angry and aggressive. I have these thugs kick their dogs for pulling on the leash when they took them out for the daily thug strut. I look at each of these dogs and my heart breaks because I know that each dog has been handed a death sentence by its owner and it will never be able to plead its case.
I’ve seen these dogs out there. I understand the fear people have, but it is misplaced.
The dogs that are raised as such surely will have to be put down. I understand this. If you cannot trust that a dog trained to be violent will forever be non-violent then that dog must be put down. This is sad, but necessary. We do not, however, need to ban all dogs. We need to make the dog owners as responsible for the damage their dog does as they would be if they used a weapon on a victim. These dogs are raised to be weapons and should be treated as such.
The dogs that are not, should not be treated like this. Milo, Doti and Bela are and were the sweetest dogs around. They do no harm, they are well trained (or being trained). They are fun and gentle and rambunctious happy dogs. Under this legislation it would be a misdemeanor for Dena and Levi to have these dogs. That is wrong.
People need to stop being reactionary and start thinking for once.