Congratulations are in order for the Riverside County, California Board of Supervisors who, on Oct. 8, 2013, unanimously voted to pass an impotent breed-specific mandatory spay/neuter law for “pit bulls.”  

We haven’t seen a breed-specific mandatory spay/neuter law in a while so I was trying to figure out how to describe them to those who aren’t yet familiar with them.   Breed-specific mandatory spay/neuter laws are like a double-stuff Oreo full of rich, creamy ineffectiveness.   Why?   Because they’re ineffective on two levels.   We already have decades of evidence — in Denver and Miami-Dade County alone — proving breed-specific legislation (BSL) doesn’t work.   We also have over two decades of evidence showing that mandatory spay/neuter (MSN) laws don’t work.  

But in case anyone in Riverside County was tempted to look at the evidence of the ineffectiveness of breed-specific mandatory spay/neuter laws, well, there was a so-called “pit bull” attack on two children in neighboring San Bernadino over the weekend conveniently right before the Riverside County Board of Supervisors were to vote on the MSN ordinance this week.  

The L.A. Times also ran a nice synopsis of recent local so-called “pit bull” attacks too:

Last month, a 2-year-old boy was mauled to death by five pit bulls in San Bernardino County. In August, a woman in Riverside County was hospitalized after she was attacked by two pit bulls. And in May a pack of pit bulls killed a woman out for a walk in the Antelope Valley.

All of these incidents were as the result of negligence or criminal acts by the dogs’ owners.   So, by Riverside County’s estimation, will a drug dealer who ill-uses “pit bulls” to protect his drug cache suddenly start abiding by a mandatory spay/neuter law?   Not likely.   But hats off to the L.A. Times for keeping people focused on hysteria instead of reason, facts, and statistics which show that neither BSL nor MSN actually work, and in so doing not addressing what is clearly a crime problem, not a “pit bull” problem (especially since pit bull isnt even a breed).

Ohwell, I guess the rest of the level-headed country shouldn’t be surprised at the lunacy coming out of California lately.   Hollister, California tried to pass a breed-specific mandatory spay/neuter law for Chihuahuas a few years ago, and Oakland just recently tried to ban walking canes.   Yes, walking canes! (and hammers, wrenches, slingshots, shields, screwdrivers, and any other “tool of vandalism.”)

Still, if that old saying about “As California goes, so goes the rest of the country” is true, God help us!

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