Florida Lawmaker Wants to Ban Pit Bulls

TALLAHASSEE, FL (AP) -- Responding to growing concerns about dog attacks, a Florida lawmaker wants to give local governments more authority to target dangerous breeds with tighter controls and bans. House Bill 101 would reverse an 18-year-old state prohibition on breed-specific local regulations on dogs. Politicians from Broward and Palm Beach counties say they'd like to ban dangerous dogs -- specifically pit bulls -- or at least keep them away from public places. Pit bulls and pit bull mixes account for nearly a third of reported dog bites in both counties. "This ain't the regular family pet," the bill's sponsor, Rep. Perry Thurston, D-Plantation, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

"I don't think we put our heads in the sand and pretend there's not a problem." The legislation, which lacks a matching bill in the Senate, has met resistance from dog owners who are concerned that their pets might become outlawed. Helen Schwarzmann, of the Florida Doberman Pinscher Rescue Ring, started a blog on her group's Web site opposing the bill. Any breed can attack a human, she said. Labrador retrievers, the most popular breed in America, rank near the top in reported cases of dog bites in South Florida, she said. But compared to other breeds, pit bulls can cause much more serious injuries, Thurston said. Miami-Dade is the only county in Florida with a ban on pit bulls. The ban was grandfathered in because it was passed a year before the state law that prohibited breed-specific bans. In 2007, there were 440 reported incidents in which pit bulls and pit bull mixes bit people in Broward and Palm Beach counties, according to the counties' animal-control departments. But animal-control officials don't support a ban on specific breeds, because it would be difficult to enforce and unfair to the dogs that aren't a threat.