Is It Practical to Ban Pit Bulls?

One of the rare serious posts of mine

So, Daily Wire colleague Matt Walsh started posting about how pit bulls should be banned.

Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog

Pitbulls should be banned and there is no sane argument to the contrary. They are dangerous animals, responsible for a vastly disproportionate number of fatal maulings in this country. The fact that you think they're cute does not outweigh the danger. Ban them.

New York Post @nypost

7-year-old Louisiana girl mauled to death in yard by neighbor's pitbull https://t.co/qw27FcTzzg https://t.co/0fb2fVWGSB

He had more tweets arguing with people about the merits of pit bulls, but I’m not really interested in that. Now, I believe there are a lot of stats on pit bulls being in a disproportionate number of fatalities. That alone doesn’t prove pit bulls are a dangerous breed, though, because the wrong sort of people may seek out pit bulls because of their notoriety. There still seems to be a lot of debate in that area, but again, not really my focus here. It’s just my hackles get raised whenever anyone floats a ban on anything because we’re talking about government force here, which I feel everyone should be especially slow to use. Some people have it in their heads that when you ban something, it’s like waving a magic wand and that thing magically disappears, but reality is messier than that. And I know there has also been talk about banning gas stoves, but that one is too silly to talk about at length, so let’s focus on pit bulls.

So, for the sake of this intellectual exercise, let’s just say that pit bulls are an especially dangerous breed, and it’s inherent to their nature they cause more fatalities. I think even if that were proven, a pit bull ban still isn’t practical.

First off, it doesn’t seem like you should just ban pit bulls. It’s like with the people who are certain an AR-15 is an especially dangerous type of gun still don’t usually pass legislation that just says, “AR-15s are banned.” Instead, they made up some category called “assault weapon,” had to define all guns that fall in that category (which should include AR-15s), and then ban them. If pit bulls are an especially dangerous breed, there most like are other very dangerous breeds out there that simply aren’t as popular (but maybe could be if pit bulls are banned). So you want to make some category called something like “deadly dog breeds” and make some sort of objective standard that would place a dog breed in that category. “All dog breeds that [X] are defined as a deadly dog breed.” And then you have to figure out what X is, which isn’t simple but still maybe doable. Perhaps if the ratio of fatalities attributed to a dog breed versus the size of its known population hits a certain level (you wouldn’t want to go simply by the number of fatalities attributed to a dog breed as that would single out popular dog breeds that aren’t necessarily more deadly than other ones).

Now, let’s assume we did this and we have an objective measure by which to say a dog breed is a “deadly dog breed.” Now, here is where it starts to really get tricky. How do you legally prove that a dog is a member of a certain dog breed? Not to be flippant, but what is a pit bull? Dog breeds aren’t like the distinction between male and female — it’s not a binary thing. You have to remember here that technically a chihuahua is still the same species as a gray wolf. You have a lot of physical distinctions and behavioral differences between dog breeds, but they’re all Canis lupus. So what if someone accuses someone of having a pit bull, and he’s like, “No, he just looks kind of pit bully.”?

Now, I ran into this as I had adopted a dog that was said to be a German Shepherd mix but had some pit bull-looking features. At one point, our homeowners’ insurance actually dropped us as one of their people came by, saw the dog, and labeled her an “exotic breed.” Now, that was done with a glance, but we’re talking about a private company making a decision. When we’re talking about a law, we need a standard that can hold up in court. You don’t want to give sociopathic bureaucrats leeway to be arbitrary.

Now, there apparently are genetic tests for dogs that will tell you the dog breed. I don’t know their accuracy, but again, for the sake of argument, let’s say they’re accurate. Then I guess you can make the law if the dog has a certain percentage of a deadly dog breed, it’s an illegal dog. Now, we’re getting expensive with all the genetic tests, but it’s maybe feasible from a technical standpoint.

So, what would happen to all the currently living dogs in deadly dog breeds if you enact this law? Now, you could say they all have to be put to sleep, but I think most people would be against mass killing of millions of kids’ dogs. And there would probably be a lot of resistance and hiding of dogs. Most likely, it would grandfather dogs from before the law was enacted. Now, unlike with grandfathered “assault weapons” (the millions of which that already exist will still be usable a hundred years from now), if the ban is perfect, there should be no more pit bulls (or other deadly dog breeds) fifteen years from now.

But what are the chances of the ban being effective? Now, it’s unclear how many pit bulls are in the U.S. (you don’t register dogs and, again, knowing the breed is a bit sketchy), but I’m seeing numbers from 5 million (from anti-pit bull sites) to as high as 18 million (from pro-pit bull sites). It’s a lot of dogs, and we don’t know where they are or who has them. And you need to stop them from breeding. And people tend to be really attached to their dogs, so I’d expect a lot of non-compliance. At some point, you need local sheriffs raiding people’s houses and confiscating puppies from crying kids so they can be euthanized. It’s going to be a really messy business, and I’d expect a lot of local sheriffs to refuse to enforce the law unless the dog was actually attacking people (which, even with the most dangerous breeds, the vast majority won’t attack anyone).

So, even if you can objectively define deadly dog breeds and objectively be able to identify members of those breeds, I still don’t see how this ever becomes more than a mostly ignored, arbitrarily enforced law. So, to stay true to my, “I believe in the rule of law” t-shirt, I could not support it. I think you’re better off passing laws to go after bad owners and more legal liabilities for dog attacks than any sort of law where you’re trying to precog dogs before they attack. And then there is social pressure. I know with the trouble we had with a big dog that was possibly a pit bull, if we get another dog, we’re going to get a smaller one (even though I don’t consider small dogs real dogs).

So what do you think? Would it be possible for a ban on pit bulls to be effective? And is that an interest of the government?