Priorities

Owning a Pit Bull is much like keeping a loaded gun in the nightstand. Sooner or later something will happen. The protestations of Pit Bull aficionados are a dim defense in support of breeding and keeping these animals.
A family is in mourning because the "family" Pit Bull killed their 3 year-old child. When officers and paramedics arrived the dog was aggressive towards them and a sheriff's deputy shot and killed the animal.
Sadly, there will most probably follow lots of backward-looking, accusations, and denials between family members. Breeders will blog, froth at the mouth on TV, and generally come to the defense of the breed and perhaps even this dog. Who will speak for the dead child?
I remember a trip we took up to Bishop, California in our camping van. Our wire-haired terrier (Sassy) went along. She was just a puppy and so was energetic and rambunctious. After we found our assigned spot and were settled in, Sassy and I went for a walk. Of course, she was on a lead. As we rounded a corner in the campground road a medium-sized dog rushed at us. I jerked Sassy up into my arms while the attacker leaped up over and over trying to bite Sassy. I stood there yelling at the dog and kicking at it (never making contact...sigh) when this short, pudgy, red-faced man came running (as much as a short, pudgy man can run) from his trailer.
Fiction: he called off his dog and apologized over and over again for his dog's behavior and immediately tied the dog next to the trailer.
Truth: he came puffing up to us, screwed up his face and yelled, "If u hrt mah dog, I'wll, keal u!" delivered in an accent from a place where mean dogs and mean men are soul mates. Go figure.
That was the end of the walk, and within less than ten minutes the ignorant pudgy little man, his truck, his trailer, his dog, and the rest of his kin were gone.
People choose blindness, very much like tobacco executives who denied (for profit, of course) that nicotine is "non-addictive." Perhaps you remember the Senate hearings a decade or so ago when a table full of (probably non smoking) tobacco big wigs took turns leaning into the one microphone and parroted their agreed-upon bottom line: "non-addictive."
Denial is not a river in Egypt. Denial is a tool we use for personal or pecuniary profit; usually at the expense of others. Those who deny the lethality of Pit Bulls live in the State of Denial which is southwest of the State of Jefferson in California (tongue in cheek).
Pudgy little people (small minds, small values, small principles, small concern for anyone but themselves) like their dogs, might best be dealt with at a hypoxic altitude. Did I say that? Did I mean that? Well...almost...as I think about a three year-old child being mauled to death by a Pit Bull.
This tragic incident illustrates how important it is for parents to protect their children...as best they can...from the evils in the "neighborhood." What kind of Pit Bulls do we permit in our homes? evil dogs that devour our children's hearts and minds. Soon enough, the time will come when they go out and make their own poor decisions...adopting a Pit Bull of another color that might maul and perhaps destroy their lives.
e.c.