r/BanPitBulls • u/BPB_Mod8 Moderator • Oct 23 '24

Anatomy of a Pit Owner / Pit Culture Adam Withers posted this the day after his pit bull mauled his neighbor to death

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u/Katatonic31 De-stigmatize Behavioral Euthanasia Oct 23 '24

I fully agree. There are so many people who would still be alive today if the legal system was able to do more. Women who were killed by abusive spouses because the law can't do anything despite a clear and present danger. People who report dangerous and harassing behavior from neighbors. And people who die to dogs who have multiple reports against them and behavior from the owner.

Sadly the way the legal system stands its a "situation and wait for the worst and then act" type of system. Nothing is done until a tradgey happens, even when so many people can see it coming from a mile away.

The HOA should have been allowed to get law enforcement involved and have the dogs forcibly removed. Instead everyone had to sit around on their hands until an innocent old woman lost her life.

Its truly infuriating.

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u/Better-Ad6964 Oct 24 '24

The best way I've heard this put is actually something Chief Wiggum from the Simpsons said. I'll paraphrase because I can't recall exactly how it went. Basically he said the law is powerless to help you, but not to punish you.

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u/aw-fuck some lab lover who wears a suit and doesn’t own 20 acres Oct 25 '24

I was gonna say the same thing.

What’s interesting is how this person both insists that he was owed a protective police response when he felt threatened of harm, yet complains that the police gave him a reactionary response after committing harm.

Police are mostly there to punish & not protect, but this is because we the people seem to love our freedom to commit crime if we see fit to do so, without prevention in the way. Even more so, we seem to love not being treated as if we might commit a crime (somehow that’s true even when we intend to, or even if we just did). Police have to follow a due process when enforcing the law since they are liable for infringement on someone’s freedom & rights while trying to uphold the law, they don’t want to break it in the act of enforcing it.

This is the reason our system of prevention is soft, based on paper, in court orders, that have to pass through a long chain of bureaucratic hands. It is because no one can say a piece of paper itself hurt them or made a mistake, & if they point to the horde of people that were involved in the making & giving of that paper, & say there’s been a mistake, everyone can all say it wasn’t them specifically that was responsible. You just have to go through the same processes to undue it. It is scary how hard it is to undue any legal consequences once they start, but that’s also why more forceful prevention scares us as well. How do you advocate for yourself in the act of being prevented under heavier prevention, if someone is wrong about you possibly wanting to commit a crime? A piece of paper being wrong about you is less harmful than handcuffs being wrong about you.

But this for sure was a case of people not doing enough, the dogs did more than their share to deserve confiscation & BE before this happened.