Breed specific legislation and due process
Remember the phrase, "you can't judge a book by its cover?" That applies to dogs too.
A number of communities have implemented "breed specific legislation" (BSL) that have banned certain dogs, with the bans most commonly falling on pit bulls. There are a lot of arguments about BSL, but I am not getting into that here. For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that BSL is a good idea and should be more common at the state and local level. So since we are banning pit bulls, the obvious question is this: What is a pit bull?
This is a legitimate question and almost no one has been willing to answer it. There have been genes identified as pit bull genes. What percentage of pit bull genes would trigger a ban? Obviously a purebred would be banned. After that, what is the threshold? 90%? 70%? 50%? 30%? Pit mixes are very common, likely because pits are a very popular dog breed and dogs that have not been spayed or neutered reproduce with other breeds. If we are going to have an enforceable law that is not thrown out by the courts as unconstitutionally vague, we need to define exactly what we are banning.
One of the dumber proposals is to ban any dog that "looks like" a pit bull. This is what caused a court case a decade ago when a city demanded a man surrender the bulldog he had adopted because it looked like a pit bull. Obviously, the enforcement of those laws must include due process for the pet owners, and that means a genetic test for pit bull genes. Banning dogs that "look like" pit bulls is nonsensical and discredits the law. It is the same mentality that resulted in Australia banning a bolt-action rifle because it looked like a semi-automatic "assault rifle."
Obviously, dangerous dogs should be euthanized. A dog that is violent toward humans should not be permitted to be around people, especially children. This is much more important when the dog in question is large and powerful and can do a lot of physical damage. It does not matter what the breed is: Once a dog has been demonstrated to be dangerous to humans, it should be euthanized. But if we are going to have breed-specific legislation, that legislation (as with any laws banning things) needs to be clear and specific. This should not be debatable.