So can kitchen knives..One possibility (and it is just a possibility, which I'm sure has got holes, etc).
To own a gun you need to apply and have a background check.
Dogs, self-evidently, can also cause deaths. Just like a gun.
So, to own a dog, requires a background check, and anyone with suitable offences (I don't know, previous conviction for violence, looking and acting like human trash, that kind of thing) bars you from owning an animal.
I would start by applying that to some (quasi)hoomans.If you own a dog, and it causes alarm or distress, or injures a person AND it is reported to the police, then the owner should be investigated and the dog detained until such time as a canine professional can ascertain if the dog is in fact, of sound temperament and properly trained.
Are there enough canine attacks to qualify for the change in Law an to the extent of punishment you are suggesting?
What if it was a law applied to Knives , Axes , Blades ( Oh My... ) - would you be rallying to support a change then without feeling unduly penalised?
The knife analogy is a good one and what I’ve been thinking on myself. My knee jerk reaction is to ban the xl bully but when I considered all the knife legislation it has made me pause.It's not about the volume of attacks. it's about the severity of injury. A change to our gun laws came about because of a single firearms incident (Dunblane 1996). A dog can cause life changing injury or death.
And yes, I would be rallying to support a change in the law to the same effect regarding sharps in public, IF the individual has no sound reason for carrying the article in a public place and causes alarm or distress or injury to another person or animal. But, this thread is about dogs..... not knives again......
Well not really. The analogy is being used to help not to start talking about that subject.I think using the knife analogy is taking the thread off track.
It's neither the knife nor the dog that's the issue, it's the behaviour of the knife owner, or the dog owner/ the dog that's the issue.
My personal opinion is that we rear dogs for two reasons; for working animals or pets/companions.
Bred for aggression is only for war dogs, and we don't do that anymore thankfully.
Unfortunately not everyone's got the message
Well not really. The analogy is being used to help not to start talking about that subject.
‘A comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect’
It could be any item. Guns, fast cars, whatever.
You’ve kind of backed up the comparison by saying it’s the owner in both cases.
No one said they were the same thing but thinking on any knee jerk legislation in a similar way.It was dragging in a false hare.
The issue is dogs, not knives.
If we can say, and we do, that guns are not knives, and the laws ought not cover both, but be specific to either, then the same applies to dogs and knives.
We know that we can breed dogs for certain traits; we need to not breed for aggression.
No one said they were the same thing but thinking on any knee jerk legislation in a similar way.
So, do you think ban the xl bully?
My point being please don't support changing laws without really thinking hard about ALL the prospective angles and applications and to whom it may effect.It's not about the volume of attacks. it's about the severity of injury. A change to our gun laws came about because of a single firearms incident (Dunblane 1996). A dog can cause life changing injury or death.
And yes, I would be rallying to support a change in the law to the same effect regarding sharps in public, IF the individual has no sound reason for carrying the article in a public place and causes alarm or distress or injury to another person or animal. But, this thread is about dogs..... not knives again......
Respectfully no - previous in the thread was mention of banning specific pedigree or canine genetics.I think using the knife analogy is taking the thread off track.
It's neither the knife nor the dog that's the issue, it's the behaviour of the knife owner, or the dog owner/ the dog that's the issue.
My personal opinion is that we rear dogs for two reasons; for working animals or pets/companions.
Bred for aggression is only for war dogs, and we don't do that anymore thankfully.
Unfortunately not everyone's got the message
I find myself in agreement.Banning zombie knives is capable of catching out useful knives like a machete or even bilhook.
Banning bully xl dogs could catch out dogs that are not dangerous or not bully xl dogs.
It's not a defined breed in the UK and everywhere but USA I believe. Also, the xl refers to size. Like poodles there's not one size. How do you separate a large standard bully and an xl one? BTW back a few years ago I believe poodles had a bit of a rep for being a snappy kind of dog. Supposedly one of the cleverest breeds even second behind border collies but that's a digression.
My point is that if you're proposing laws for anything considered to have the potential for harm you need to really design those laws with real care. You don't want unexpected consequences like catching useful tools like machetes or dogs that don't have issues of aggression in knee jerk legislation to certain still rare events that are covered by existing legislation anyway.
BTW you can make any dog aggressive if you want to. You can make any knives dangerous if you want to. You can make any human dangerous, in fact we are a very dangerous species so perhaps we should be banned and PTS. We created dangerous dog breeds, we make weapons and tools capable of great harm and we cause harm in an unsustainable way.
So how would you envisage the Belgian Malinois ? The canine of choice for the armed forces ? - would that be bannedI think that breeding such dogs, if aggression is a definite character trait, ought to be verbotten, and all such dogs sterilised.
That way those who have them as pets, still have their pets, just sort of calmed, and no more of them in a few years.
To keep a dog, in normal society, as an aggressive animal, is not acceptable.
Humanity has selectively bred dogs for specific character traits for millennia. We know how to breed out 'flaws'......just some eejits seem determined to breed for those flaws.