Monday, March 1, 2010

Assault with a deadly pit bull

You ever notice that in every news story about a dog attacking anything, the dog in question is always a pit bull? Always. And this despite that a pit bull isn't actually a breed of dog; it's a label. Kinda like "Assault Thingies."

Interesting.

Anyways, this is one jacked up story.

The cop very well may have been arresting a legitimate scumbag, or maybe not for all I know, and I presume that he was not in uniform. Uniforms are very important. They help identify police officers as bonded servants of public safety, and not one of two gangbangers fighting in your back yard at 1 a.m. that needs the attention of your guard dog. If I saw two plain clothes dudes rolling around in my yard in the dark, I'm certainly not going to take one of them at their word that they're a police officer and, like most folks, probably couldn't tell what the hell that shiny thingie is that one of them is shining a flashlight at. I definitely wouldn't fire a gun up in the air, either.

I'm glad everyone survived that mess. Too bad for the dog though.

Update: To be clear, I'm not denouncing the American Pit Bull Terrier, or any of the Bull Terrier breeds, just the overarching term "pit bull" that is branded on any dog that is worthy of a newspaper article. Some ugly mutt bites a kid and all of a sudden it's "PIT BULL GOES ON FEEDING FRENZY AT DAY CARE CENTER!!!" The label "pit bull" is the "assault thingie" term of the canine reporting world.

4 comments:

Boogliodemus said...

"And this despite that a pit bull isn't actually a breed of dog".

Believe me, it is indeed a specific breed as anyone familiar with them can attest. I like your blog but you are wrong on this one. The American Pit Bull Terrier is a highly specialized performance bred dog whether you agree with their purpose or not.

Unknown said...

I absolutely agree that the "American Pit Bull Terrier" is a specific breed. I also agree that they are a performance bred dog. I ask you though, in all the articles on dogs that attack is the dog in question of that breed? It's never known, but I would opine that it's not often. What I'm pointing to is the "Pit Bull" mantra, of which that covers many different types of dog, and in the medias eyes it's always one of those.

Unknown said...

It is the same thing to ask that, in firearm stories, how many times do you see that the weapon is an AK-47? All the time. Is the weapon that was really used an AK-47? Nope. Are there AK-47s in the US? Not real ones. The term AK-47 used by the media is a fabricated term used to denounce a whole gambit of scary looking weapons; in the case of dogs, that term is pit bull.

Boogliodemus said...

You have a point there. The scare stories in the news can be any dog, from a Boston Terrier to a Rottweiler. The first stories came in the late 70s after Humane Society hype about Dobermans quit generating donations. The first story I recall was in Sports Illustrated, believe it or not. There was another one in Discover magazine around the same time. The breed has gotten a bum rap.