Raistlin

Recently, the Maryland Court of Appeals (the state's highest court) did a mind-bogglingly stupid thing. Normally, a dog owner (or a landlord that allows a certain dog on the premises) is not negligent for simply having or allowing a dog that bites someone else, unless there's evidence that the owner knew or should have known that the individual dog was dangerous. For instance, a history of attacks or aggressive behavior.

That has now changed in Maryland, at least for pit bulls. In a recent opinion, the court adopted a new standard with respect to pit bulls or "cross-breed pit bulls" (which means mixed, as far as I can tell): if a pit bull attacks someone, the owner (and/or landlord that allowed it) is negligent for even having the pit bull based solely on the fact that it is a pit bull, as long as the owner/landlord knew it was such a breed of dog. No evidence of dangerous tendencies or history is required, because pit bulls are inherently dangerous. In this case, the court found that a landlord was negligent simply for allowing a tenant to have his pit bull on the leased premises, on the sole basis that the dog was a pit bull.

And that is bulltit.

Pit bulls are no more "inherently dangerous" than any other dog. In fact, actual studies and animal specialists widely consider pit bulls to be among the most people-friendly breeds. They are intelligent, loyal, and easy to train -- and combined with their strength, that makes them easy to abuse into guard or fighting dogs. But absent that abuse, those same traits make them excellent family dogs.

So not only is the pit bull hate stupid (and city-wide bans on them even worse), but it's also unworkable, mostly because there is no such thing as a "pit bull." As colloquially used, the term "pit bull" is used to refer to a number of similar-looking, closely-related breeds.

And the MD court opinion applies to all "pit bulls" (whatever that may be) and mixed-breed pits... whatever that means. How much "pit bull" blood must be in a dog before that strict liability standard applies? Is DNA testing required? The court conveniently ignores the problem of implementation.

The dissent in the opinion does a good job of attacking the majority's mindless fear-mongering. The majority cites a lot of dog-bite numbers, but by itself that doesn't tell the story. In fact, most of the studies by the majority specifically do not recommend breed-specific regulation, but instead more of a focus on a dog's behavior, socialization, or other individualized factors, or on the behavior of the owner or others responsible for the dogs.

Originally Posted by the dissent

According to some experts, there are more than twenty-five breeds of dogs commonly mistaken for pit bulls. Notwithstanding this empirical evidence, the majority relies upon the assumption that all pit bulls are inherently dangerous. In this record, there is no evidence from expert witnesses to support the proposition that pit bulls or pit bull mixed-breeds are inherently dangerous. It appears that the media has demonized pit bulls as gruesome fighting dogs and has not revealed the long history of pit bulls as family dogs with passive behaviors. The majority also assumes that breed-specific rules, as opposed to behavior modification rules, are a better approach to controlling the problem of dog bites caused by pit bulls and mixed-breed pit bulls that attack humans. Again, the empirical evidence is in dispute. Some experts conclude that breed-specific liability rules provide a superficial sense of security because many factors completely unrelated to the breed or appearance of dogs affect their tendency toward aggression, including early experience, socialization, training, size, sex, and reproductive status.

In short: breed-specific laws or policies are retarded, and pit bulls are great dogs.