Isn’t it cute that when a city like Miami or Denver opts to double down on their Pit Bull bans, the celebratory narrative then coming from anti-dog websites like DogsBite and Animals24-7 is plush with phrases like “crushed,” “destroyed” and “overwhelming.” Says Pit Bull-hating Merritt Clifton about the 64.7% to 35.3% defeat of Aurora, Colorado’s Prop 2D: “Attempt to repeal Pit Bull ban crushed in Colorado.” Crushed. Crushed? It’s convenient though, that these kinds of descriptive phrases are only rolled out when the result is beneficial to a campaign supporting continued Pit Bull eradication.
If any result is favorable to that concept then it’s something like this… “Citizens turn out,” or “population weighs in,” or “communities make it known,” etc. On the flipside, if the result is the exact opposite then their narrative morphs into something more like this… “Pit Bull lobbyists come out,” etc.
Always aiming to normalize themselves while villainizing anyone who opposes their desire to kill, eliminate and/or criminalize millions of dogs. Everyone with a Pit Bull or a dog mixed at any level with a Pit Bull-type becomes a “lobbyist.” That means millions of people. Everyone with a Pit Bull or a dog mixed at any level with a Pit Bull-type becomes a “dog fighting supporter.” So grotesquely offensive and void of even the slightest sliver of common sense or truth. And if you oppose breed discrimination in the form of mandatory sterilization laws, being pushed from a ban-mentality? Well, then you’re characterized as a “breeder” or a “lobbyist” for puppy mills or for breeders. Worse, the folks saying this will then attempt to blame you for the shelter deaths of Pit Bulls, and pose as saviors to the Pit Bulls, all while openly trying to kill/ban/eliminate them. This is 1984, indeed.
To follow up on this last paragraph… Do I think that everyone in Aurora who voted to keep this ban shares the vitriolic anti-Pit Bull mentality of say a Colleen Lynn or a Merritt Clifton? Of course not! Not even close. Not even remotely close. This is just another issue to most, one that they’ve been conditioned to view from a certain perspective, and without ever having any personal experience with a Pit Bull or being exposed to any alternative viewpoints. Does that make them bad? No! That makes them human. How many issues in the world is any random one of us well-informed on? How many issues in the world do I, or you, or he, or she actively seek to consistently follow? How many issues do we passively accept? Finally, how many issues go unacknowledged because there’s not enough time in our day? Ask yourself these questions. And as many would likely change their views with a little information and experience, some wouldn’t, and that’s totally fine, because this is America after all. The bottom line is that Aurora is filled with good folks, just as Denver and Miami are filled with good folks. They voted to not undo a wrong, a very complicated and multifaceted wrong. This happens. This is life. I’m not saying that I like it, but I’m not going to blame Aurora as a whole or else I’d be no better than Colleen Lynn or Merritt Clifton when they repetitively seek to blame my dog (and millions more) for something that 1 individual dog may do, either down the street or from 3,000 miles away, for example.
This is also why using Denver or Miami as a yardstick for the nation, and ignoring the 98+% of American cities and towns that DO NOT HAVE BSL, is a disingenuous exercise of the tallest order. See the below conversation as an example…
In respect to what I chided at the top of my article, I actually call Colleen and Merritt lobbyists within this pictured communication. That’s because they openly lobby for legislation that seeks to ban and kill dogs. Legislation doesn’t exist and then they push to create it. They desire legislation that, in a perfect world (to them), would disappear a quarter of the dog population (and based solely on how that massive group appears to a subjective eye). On the contrary, everyone in Aurora who cast a vote to keep the ban, they are not lobbyists, nor are the people in Aurora who wanted to lift the ban “Pit Bull lobbyists.” Neither is true. Most everyone are simply citizens taking a position on an issue. But it’s always a sweeping reaction when certain anti-dog individuals open their mouths against Pit Bulls, against their owners, against anyone who doesn’t totally agree with them. Speaking for myself and my opposing of BSL: I’m taking a reactionary stance against someone who wants to ban, kill, marginalize, criminalize, screw over my dogs and millions more that look in some way like them. That’s a reactionary position. I’m not initiating any overreaching legislation, I’m not initiating any legislation! I’m a good person. I’m responsible. I speak out against recklessness. I want to live in peace. My dogs have done nothing. Millions of dogs have done nothing.
To that point, to support collective blame and punishment onto groups of anything that have committed no crime, that’s an incredibly wrong misappropriation of power. How do you condone a Minority Report-styled world where individuals are going to be judged and then convicted based on how they might look or what list that they might be on? That’s what tyranny is. I’d much rather individuals be dealt with based upon crimes that they’ve actually committed. Once again, this is America after all.
Circling back the the beginning, and the notion that numbers are somehow showing us that a concept is being “crushed.” With millions of Pit Bulls in the United States, and millions more that may be lumped into that certain category (depending on who is doing the categorizing, and for what end), one concept that is being absolutely “crushed” by reality is that (by whatever metric or calculation that you use) 99.99999% of these dogs have not killed or attacked anyone. This goes very conveniently ignored by the few eugenic exploitation artists that foam from their mouths at the thought of a Pit Bull mass genocide, but it’s a fact nonetheless.
