A lesson from Denver: Dogs are safe, breed bans are ineffective

Taken from here. It's another decent article from Westword on dog bites and statistics.

I know the graphic is a little blurry, so I'll reiterate the essence of what it states: In the past twenty years, a grand total of nine individuals died because of a dog attack. Seven children, two adults. Pit Bulls accounted for two of those fatalities.

As of 2000, Colorado had a population of 4.3 million. Do the math.

Then there are just your run of the mill dog bites. In Denver, 305 people reported being bitten by a dog in 2008. Denver has a population of nearly 600,000. Again, do the math.

Ignoring severity, ignoring population dynamics, the reality is sitting right in front of us: The overwhelming majority of dogs do not bite and when they do, they generally show great restraint. Dog bite fatalities are anomalies, incredibly tragic events that, as far as their rates of occurrence happen rarely. They do not represent the norm of dog behavior.