Animal advocates, who believe the city of Yakima is overly harsh in banning “pit bulls,” are lobbying Yakima’s city officials to “toss the current ban” according to KIMA CBS 29.

Yet  Yakima Mayor Micah Cawley sees it differently:

“I don’t see it being lifted. I know that people have sent petitions in and want to talk about it and they’re saying it’s not the breed, it’s how they were raised, Yakima Mayor Micah Cawley told Action News.

. . . [Advocates] believe a change to the law could target dangerous dogs more effectively. Yakima’s mayor isn’t convinced. He worries about a past history of over-breeding.

“That encourages people to then breed them for fighting and other things that you think wouldn’t happen, Cawley told us.

Notice how Mayor Cawley is listing things that are done to “pit bulls,” arguing that “pit bulls” should continue to be banned under Yakima’s breed-specific law (BSL) because of what unscrupulous, wicked individuals do to them: overbreed them and use them in illegal dog fighting.   So Mayor Cawley is blaming the victim — “pit bulls” — for their own exploitation.   Does that kind of faulty logic make any sort of sense?

And as Winnipeg, among other cities, has shown, criminals either ignore the law or simply switch to owning and criminally using other breeds of dog.   In Winnipeg, criminals have switched to owning Boxer-Mastiff crosses.   So all BSL does is make the community less safe by allowing criminals to continue to exploit dogs.   Brilliant.   How’s that working out for Yakima?  

. . . Animal Control says the breed is behind most fatal dog attacks. But advocates insist a dangerous dog is a dangerous dog, no matter what kind of breed.

“Dangerous dogs are the ones that create unsafe neighborhoods or communities. And what we are looking for would be an effective way of enforcing a law that would be breed neutral, said Wendy St. George, the executive director at the Yakima Human Society.

How many times do we have to say it?   “Pit bull” is not a breed, no matter how many times Dogsbite.org disciples cite junk science statistics claiming that “pit bull” is supposedly a breed.   And because we almost daily see mastiffs labeled as “pit bulls,” and in one case, even a Chihuahua was mistaken for a “pit bull,” what breed at this point can’t pass as a “pit bull”?  

Do you see, then, how statistics which show “pit bulls” as supposedly being responsible for most fatal attacks are wildly skewed and therefore meaningless to the point where if you cite these stats with a straight face you look like a total moron? (Or, in some cases, a moron with an agenda.)   So do Yakima city officials really want to be thought of as morons?   Because when even President Obama comes out against BSL saying, like the CDC did, that BSL is ineffective legislation, you’d have to be pretty foolish to keep pushing BSL as if it is effective legislation when historically, as even the President acknowledges, it has been the opposite.

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