About this particular chart:
If a dog attack happens, and a police officer can't really tell what the breed is, they will usually pick pit bull.
Source: Me, who dealt with crime statistics in a previous life
That's not a source. If you dealt with statistics you also know silly that is.
The chart also doesn't include the overall population for scale - Labs and Mastiffs might look equally dangerous if you glance at the chart with that absent. And obviously the ratio is insane.
Anyway this conversation is doomed because people will talk past the underlying issue because everyone here is the most dedicated and responsible pet owner ever.
And I think most people understand that "pitbull" refers to a wide range of large muscular terriers (and derived mutts) rather than the AKC definition - including some of the policemen you carefully detailed. The chart above is meaningful because most people can't tell the difference between a pure bred pitbull and that range of larger terriers. So if it makes everyone comfortable - a few pictures of the
sort of dog it means would work just as well. But it doesn't make the chart useless. There's plainly a disproportionate issue with the
range of dogs it infers. Your theoretical Cops aren't misidentifying Yorkies and German Shepherds.
And it's not
completely irrational to be more afraid of "pitbulls" than other breeds, because Pitbull (or any macho dog breed including Rottweilers etc) is much more likely to be owned by an idiot. Anyone who really knows dogs can look at any breed and get some sense of the dogs temperament from its bearing and behavior. I'll even agree with the straw man that "Chihuahuas are more likely to bite you" and indeed small nervous dogs are just as likely to have shitty owners - but a lot less likely to knock over the fence or dig under a gate or be abandoned to run feral in a weird part of town.
The only breeds that actually make me a little nervous even if they're on a leash is Rodhesian Ridgebacks and one or two outher giant mastiffs - because they also have a lot of irresponsible or macho owners who can't control them.
The dogs themselves are not to blame for this. Nor is their breed. But the data is meaningful even if you believe the semantics are flawed. Just as it is not irrational to think a minivan is going to sit blissfully unaware that the light has changed to green, or that a Mercedes G Wagon is not in fact going to come to a complete stop at the stopsign. It's extremely unscientific, and many times you might be wrong, but it's not without basis.
The overall breed category is meaningful for terriers, because they have a clamp and worry instinct that's dialed up high - so when they DO bite, they hang on and shake a lot more than other breeds, because they were designed to for hunting. That's why Jack Russells show up so disproportionately int he chart above in terms of the
severity of the bites they inflict.
I've also yet to hear a good argument against making all non-working pet breeding require the inclusion of temperament and gentleness as an aspect of their persona. Obedience is only a useful trait if the owners are going to train them properly. That's why the AKC (and other organization's definitions) criteria are kind of a joke in that regard, because they makes no allowance for the very real problem of shitty owners and assumes a well fed, properly socialized and trained animal. There's also a separate issue of them including utterly cruel health-impacting aesthetics that create dogs with hip problems and breathing difficulties and so on, on purpose, for
looks.
At least that way when feral dogs knock up other people's Labradors, the resulting offspring might have a shot at ebing chill and healthy.
Like making cars with no airbags because you think only careful law abiding drivers are going to have them.
