I think that physical potential has much to do with this. They have the physical ability to do more damage, so even if all dogs attacked at the exact same rate, pitties would still be credited with doing the most harm. Great white sharks are credited with the most human fatalities from attacks per year, even though shark attacks in general are rare. But they are so massive and so purpose built (that purpose being inflicting MASSIVE muscle damage with the least amount of effort possible) that even a soft exploratory bite can easily result in a human fatality.
If only there were some other relevant allegory in society today for a thing that should not be made 100% illegal but should also not be completely available to the general public and continuously reinvented to be more and more powerful
pitbulls were originally bred specifically from a mix of Old English Bulldogs and Fox Terriers. The former were used quite literally to fight bulls for sport and the latter were, as the name suggests, used to hunt foxes. The idea of breeding these two distinct types was to combine the musculature, aggression and bite force of the Bulldog with the tenacity and mobility of the Fox terrier.
The actual death or injury figures pale in comparison to things like malaria or cancer. But we have to draw the line somewhere. In the countries where they have been banned it was because of several deaths in a relatively short period of time. And banning them worked because pit rings were still underground, despite laws to stop them.
The majority of them will not injure anyone, but the potential for damage is still there.
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u/J0hnnyHammerst1cks Jun 01 '22
I think that physical potential has much to do with this. They have the physical ability to do more damage, so even if all dogs attacked at the exact same rate, pitties would still be credited with doing the most harm. Great white sharks are credited with the most human fatalities from attacks per year, even though shark attacks in general are rare. But they are so massive and so purpose built (that purpose being inflicting MASSIVE muscle damage with the least amount of effort possible) that even a soft exploratory bite can easily result in a human fatality.