evolution

KC Star’s Greg Clark: douchebag.

Attempting to stop violence by banning pit bulls is like attempting to ban smoking by outlawing blue matchbooks. Dogs are what their owners make them, and thugs who train pit bulls to hurt people aren’t going to stop because they’re “banned.” His “response” to that argument is:

As for the second argument, it’s irrelevant. If a dog is going for your throat, you don’t care how it became vicious; you just want it gone.

I wonder if Greg Clark voted against Missouri’s concealed-carry law.

As for Clark’s other two “points”, he says:

All dogs bite. But when was the last time you heard of a beagle, Scottie or Chihuahua nearly chomping off somebody’s arm?

and

This wouldn’t happen if people would teach people — especially kids — not to pet strange dogs. Maybe parents should keep their children on a leash.

The second of these is a straw man, plain and simple. The first of these is misleading, because it seems that from the American Temperament Test Society’s rankings (the test have been going on for nearly 30 years), one finds that the pit bull overall was rated with a 83.5%. Of the breeds that Clark mentions by name, the Scottie had a rating of 63.6% (one of the worst) and the Chihuahua had a rating of 71.4%. Golden retrievers, Springers, and Jack Russells all had similar temperaments. The average rating was 81.2%*. (Here’s the test.)

Anyway, the only thing left of Clark’s article worth addressing is the problem of how to prevent dogs from attacking kids. News flash: you can’t. It’s impossible, for the same reasons I just gave — people that get these dogs to attack people aren’t going to stop because they’re banned. The answer, of course, is the same as it is for anyone who incites violent behavior in humans: charge them with a crime. They’re the ones responsible.

While you’re thinking about that, think about this: Greg Clark gets paid for this.

[inherited from: SayUncle, whose pit bull and kid seem to get along famously, writes "I suppose it’s just easier to ban things, like dogs, guns, bathtubs, cars and anything else. For the children."]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 12th, 2006 at 20:59 and is filed under freedom, media bias. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.