Was this part necessary? Try to control my dog, and I'll show you just how bad dog people can really be.
Would I take out a dog that threatened my kids or myself? Of course. Would I potshot someone just because they choose to own a particular pet (or for any other decision they make)? Never.
If you control your dog, then I won't have to.
I don't care about dogs, I don't anthropomorphize them. I don't give them human qualities or see them as equals. I don't often hear dog owners say "I thought my dog was vicious and was going to attack that child/adult/animal unprovoked and he/she sure did!"
What I usually hear from almost every dog owner is, "my dog would never do that, it's the most wonderful, best behaved, teddy bear cuddly innocent intelligent magical dog of all...". Until something happens.
Forgive me if I don't trust you. Not only do I not trust dogs, I trust their owners even less in these situations. A "well-trained, well-behaved" dog can be both an offensive and defensive weapon to its owner. you confront someone with a trained dog at your side, might as well be holding a knife or pistol - so expect to be treated as such in those situations.
Not pot-shotting anyone. Dogs injur or kill people every single day at a rate higher than most other "pets" and I'm not sure owners take that seriously enough. As a citizen I deserve the right to never have to deal with your dog if I don't want to.
If a dog attacks me, I will defend by any means necessary. I don't get into the semantics of whether or not it's a bad dog or a bad owner thing since the threat is the same regardless... I don't know what the solution is, I'm a small govt type person so I'm not looking for more laws or regulation. Maybe private sector will step in by way of insurance, causing owners to bear a larger burden/financial responsibity... Though I don't know if that would ultimately be effective.
What happens in modern society is this... For our own personal safety, we have to assume any dog is potentially dangerous, since there is no way to separate the responsible owners and non-aggressive pets from the alternatives... We can see some owners manifesting proper behavior and responsibility by being extra attentive with their pet when in public, having it always leashed and under their complete control. But then there are examples of those who let their dogs run free, without physical control and claim their dog is gentle and incapable of aggression. How do I or anyone else know that? Do we deserve assurances? Or do we assume the best and prepare for the worst?
Have you ever met anyone who's been viciously attacked by a dog? Perhaps permanently, physically scarred? This isn't something you get over. You seek comfort in generalizations ( assume every gun is loaded ). I've seen this happen to a few people over the years. It's sad when someone's right to "own" an animal creates such physical and psychological risk to someone else. Maybe the "love pitbulls" crowd should be policing their own ranks, identifying the bad owners like deadbeat dads and humiliating them on a website or something.... I'm not sure there's enough outrage in the dog owning community for 6'oclock news events, I mean, theres outrage at the media for reporting on a pitbulls attack, but all the owners seem to come up with is "my dog is cuddly wuddly" and complaints that the news is picking on their dog breed.
Here's a challenge, instead of mounting PR campaigns to try and convince me pits are gentle lovers, use that energy to go after bad owners... Sponsor criminal legislation for behaviors that lead to increased dog attack risks, invite legislation that requires owner training and liability understanding to purchase these pets. I am sure there are a lot more things the dog people could be doing to ensure their animals are treated as humanely as possible and to ensure they are respecting the other citizens of society too.
Since it may be tough to really regulate or control the behavior of dog people and their pets, perhaps we need better ways for the potential victims to defend themselves... And the legislation to allow a reasonable level of self-protection against animals that are clearly capable of inflicting grievous bodily harm. As has been mentioned, pepper spray, tasters and firearms all have their negatives... Since the general public can rarely count on the dog owners themselves to take extreme measures to keep their "family member" from injuring someone else, the rest of society needs a better way to defend against unprovoked attacks. Something that any child or elderly person could use, which doesn't require brute strength or lightning reflexes and which could be available and at hand any time.
Like I said, if the dog is attacking me on my property, I don't care if you think it's a great dog and I don't care if it's never done anything like this before. First I'm dealing with the current situation with whatever means necessary or available and hope I survive, then I'm dealing with the dog owners stupid ass for not taking their responsibity seriously, which would likely be a court matter, but I wouldn't shed a tear if the sentence were extremely severe.