http://www.dogsbite.org/dangerous-dog…
PIT BULL MYTH #10: Punish the deed not the breed

The slogan often voiced by pit bull advocates, “Punish the deed not the breed,” works to the benefit of pit bull breeders and owners who accept the large collateral damage the breed inflicts upon the public and has been for the last 30-years. The slogan also accepts that a “new victim” must be created prior to punishment. The goal of breed-specific laws is to prevent the deed, as civil and criminal recourse for victims after the deed may be impossible to achieve.

Parts of a recent email sent to DogsBite.org outlines this reality clearly: “She nearly lost her left arm in that attack and since then has piled up hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. She has brought a lawsuit against the dog’s owner. He had no liability insurance and has since moved out of the neighborhood. The main witness also has moved. This woman and her family basically have no recourse. The lawsuit is fine but who knows if they will ever get a penny out of it. I’m assuming this is a fairly common occurrence that you folks know about all too well.”

Much like the outdated myth #1, “It’s the owner not the breed,” this last myth lies at the heart of archaic and insufficient U.S. dog policy. The modern answer to this final myth is to develop policies that prevent future victims from being created. Waiting until after a treacherous pit bull bite is too late. As former Lucas County Dog Warden Tom Skeldon states in a WTOL-TV interview about this issue, “there is no deep pocket to put these kids back together again” after a serious mauling.23
As with many of the older working breeds the breed name is also a job description. Pointer, retriever, setter, hovawart and shepherd are examples. The Pit Bull Terrier or American (Pit) Bull Terrier was bred solely to do combat in a dogpit. They were never nurse’s aids, nanny dogs, soldiers’ rescue dogs, herding dogs, astronauts, physicists or anything other than combat dogs. I am always suspicious of those who claim to love this breed while simultaneously in such denial of what the breed is in reality. If you love something you love it for what it truly is and not for something it has never been and can never become.