What's up with the mass market media in British Columbia?  For weeks on end, they've been blathering about 'pit bulls', in some cases making stuff up and generally acting as though they have been elected and are charged with formulating public policy.

One of the tricks used by those who don't have the facts and can't be bothered to look for them, or who want to use extreme bias and go unpunished, is to present it as opinion.  This protects them from charges of libel, slander and misrepresentation - the spreading of false news.

Unfortunately, when they publish or air these incorrect and downright nasty views, they don't usually qualify their statements but instead present them as factual.

Case in point.

Today, in one of the dailies in Vancouver, the Sun, an editorial appeared.  It was nothing more than a concise reprint of the same tripe we've been reading and hearing for years on end, and was just as factual.

Right out of the gate, in the title, is a major error and things go downhill from there.

A ban on the breed is the solution to the pit bull problem

Adam Perry, Special to the Sun

Published: Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Imagine a company seeking government approval to sell a newly invented vehicle. Call it the explocar.

The explocar is like a normal car in all ways except one: Sometimes, it explodes without warning, injuring people nearby. A few customers nonetheless prefer the explocar to a normal car. They like how it looks, and find the danger exciting.

Wow, Adam Perry is one clever duck!  That analogy is unbelievably apt!  I get it - a car is the same as a dog.  Brilliant, I say!  I can't wait to read on.  There's some blah blah blah and then:

Now, replace explocar with pit bull and you have the current choice facing British Columbians. The pit bull is a dangerous dog, with safe substitutes.

I actually sent an email to the Editor asking him to pass it along to Adam Perry.  Whether he does that or not remains to be seen.

I want Adam to answer the questions I asked, starting with "What do you mean by 'pit bull'?  Also, what do you mean by 'breed'?"

I also wonder what he means by 'safe substitutes'?  What are these substitutes?  Why does he think they are safe?

The vicious attack by a pack of pit bulls in Surrey last week is only the latest example of a pattern of violence that has led many other governments, including Ontario in 2004 and Manitoba in 1990, to ban pit bulls. It's time for our province to do the same.

My next question was "How familiar are you with the Ontario situation, what actually led to the ban and the current status of the legislation?"  Since this kid claims to be a PhD student in the Faculty of Law at Oxford, I'd expect him to know that the Ontario ban has been an abysmal failure, that the incidents leading to the ban were suspect at best and that the law itself failed to withstand a constitutional challenge at the first level in the court system.  So, if he knows that, why is he suggesting that BC follow Ontario's failed lead?  Is he lobbying to increase dog bites and waste taxpayers' money?

Or is he an animal rights/liberation law student taking a flyer by trying it on in the colonies?  Ah, the UK - birthplace of the wackadoodle movement that wants to render dogs and cats extinct.

It wasn't Manitoba, it was Winnipeg that foolishly banned 'pit bulls' in 1990 and watched its dog bite numbers skyrocket - which is the predictable norm when these kinds of laws are enacted.  Check out the UK to see how successful their 'ban' turned out to be.

I then asked for his sources for these old chestnuts:

"Generations of selective breeding have given the pit bull a fearsome physiology. Their shoulder and neck muscles bulge like a body-builder's. With each snap of their jaws, they exert 1,200 pounds of pressure per square inch, 10 times the force exerted by a German Shepherd, Doberman or Rottweiler. That's enough to snap bones, puncture abdomens and rip limbs off."

 

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"Let's start with a few facts. The pit bull is descended from the now-extinct English bulldogge, used in packs to tear apart bulls for the pleasure of a crowd. Trainers discovered they could create a tough and fearless dog by crossbreeding the bulldogge with breeds known for their "gameness," or courage. These crossbreeds -- strong, aggressive, and relentless -- were ideal for dogfights, often held in pits. No wonder, then, pit bulls are so good at killing otherdogs."

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"As scary as this sounds, it gets worse. Unlike other dogs, pit bulls often don't growl or bark before attacking. When they do attack, they're almost impossible to stop."