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"Pit bull terrier bites were responsible for a significantly higher number of orthopaedic injuries and resulted in an amputation and/or bony injury in 66% of patients treated, whereas bites from law enforcement dogs and other breeds were less associated with severe injuries."

"Among the breeds identified, pit bulls are proportionally linked with more severe bite injuries."

"47.8% of pit bull injuries required operative repair, which was 3 times more than other breeds."

"Pit bulls are more likely to cause severe injuries that require operative repairs."

"Of the 9 patients with extended hospitalization, 6 (66.7%) were caused by a pit bull...confirms our theory that this breed results in the most devastating injuries at our center."

"Our data were consistent with others, in that an operative intervention was more than 3 times as likely to be associated with a pit bull injury than with any other breed. Half of the operations performed on children in this study as well as the only mortality resulted from a pit bull injury."

"Our data revealed that pit bull breeds were more than 2.5 times as likely as other breeds to bite in multiple anatomical locations. Although other breeds may bite with the same or higher frequency, the injury that a pit bull inflicts per bite is often more severe."

"Of the more than 8 different breeds identified, one-third were caused by pit bull terriers and resulted in the highest rate of consultation (94%) and had 5 times the relative rate of surgical intervention."

"Unlike all other breeds, pit bull terriers were relatively more likely to attack an unknown individual (+31%), and without provocation (+48%)."

"Although a number of dog breeds were identified, the largest group were pit bull terriers, whose resultant injuries were more severe and resulted from unprovoked, unknown dogs."

"The findings of this study are consistent with and extend from previous publications...Dog bites from pit bull terriers, compared to bites from all other dogs, are more common, more severe, and not related to the dog being provoked."

"Compared with attacks by other breeds of dogs, attacks by pit bulls were associated with a higher median Injury Severity Scale score (4 vs. 1; P = 0.002), a higher risk of an admission Glasgow Coma Scale score of 8 or lower (17.2% vs. 0%; P = 0.006), higher median hospital charges ($10,500 vs. $7200; P = 0.003), and a higher risk of death (10.3% vs. 0%; P = 0.041)."

"Attacks by pit bulls are associated with higher morbidity rates, higher hospital charges, and a higher risk of death than are attacks by other breeds of dogs. Strict regulation of pit bulls may substantially reduce the US mortality rates related to dog bites."

In this controlled temperament test, pit bulls were at least twice as likely to attack as Dobermans, three times more likely to attack than Rottweilers, and nearly ten times more likely to attack than golden retrievers. Note that the anti-breed ban activist authors found "no significant difference" between breeds when the definition of "aggression" was watered down to the point that even whining was considered aggressive. But pay close attention to Table 5 on page 138: out of all the breeds tested, pit bulls were markedly the worst when it came to the percentage of dogs that actually attempted to bite or attack. Close to one out of seven pit bulls reached level 5 during the one hour test compared to only one out of the seventy goldens tested. "Staffordshire terrier" is what some breed registries call the pit bull terrier.

The interactive dangerous dogs map kept by the city of Minneapolis is maintained in a "breed-neutral" way in that MSP does not "discriminate against" pit bulls. Still, 70% of the dogs listed as dangerous are pit bulls; 81% are pit bulls plus closely-related bully breeds. In fact, this list has always been over half pit bulls since it was launched in 2015.

In fact, pit bulls dominate animal control dangerous dog reports throughout the U.S.: I've just singled out Minneapolis so folks can't pull the usual "but pit bulls are always misidentified" excuse because this list shows clear photos of each pit bull.

People scoff at dogsbite links, and admittedly, the editorializations on Dogsbite.org can be quite unprofessional and I disagree with many of the opinions expressed. But the matters of fact cited on Dogsbite.org are generally independently verifiable and the site generally makes clear efforts to link to and archive the original source. For example, this list of animal control reports is a good source: the data are reported directly from animal control departments and departments of agriculture.

Dogsbite.org also publishes photos of dogs that kill people on its website. If you wanted to put together a 12-month calendar of the most popular breeds in the U.S., it would look like this. But when you make that same image using the most recent reasonably clear and credible photos of the dogs that killed people in the U.S., it's considerably less diverse.

Note that these aren't the most recent deadly dog attacks, they're the most recent deadly attacks where either law enforcement or a news outlet published its own photos of the fatally-attacking dog(s). See more recent photos, including ones taken from owners' and victims' social media, here. The American Veterinary Medical Association has essentially acted as an animal breeding industry lobbying arm since 2003: the AVMA published and its position paper continues to misleadingly reference an incredibly deceptive study authored entirely by pit bull activists without mentioning their conflicts of interest or addressing any of these problems with the study.When someone "rescues" a pit bull, they're still buying a dog: a dog for whom they'll need to buy food, supplies, and veterinary care for the rest of its life. The conflicts of interest the pet care industry has in defending pit bulls is obvious. I'd be much more impressed with a ringing endorsement for pit bull innocence from any human health or public safety organizations, but literally none of them say anything remotely close to "actually, pit bulls are safe." The most comprehensive research to date on BSL in North America, conducted 2012, found a significant decrease in dog bite injury hospitalizations in regions where pit bulls are banned. The lead author, Malathi Raghavan, is assistant director of research and education for the American Veterinary Medical Association:“What we found is where the legislation was enacted, then the number of bites was reduced relative to places where the legislation wasn’t enacted,” said Dan Chateau, one of the authors of the study and a research scientist at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy. “How strongly we can claim that one caused the other, that is a little bit still up for debate but the relationship is definitely there.” From 1984 to 2006, the total number of dog bite hospitalizations per year fell by about 20 per cent, from 3.47 to 2.84 for every 100,000 people.“ Hospitalizations for dog bites are really rare. A 20 per cent reduction in anything is good, particularly with dog bites,” Chateau said. “I would think it’s a substantial reduction.�� The “crusade against pit bulls” ...is hilarious to hear about in light of the fact that pit bull lobbyists spend millions of dollars every year to pimp pit bulls in cable TV and in the news and in coffee table books with insipid titles like I'm a Good Dog: Pit Bulls, America's Most Beautiful (and Misunderstood) Pet and in feature films and with an invented history as sugary and fake and absurd as "nanny dog" and "American icon."...while anti-pit bull crusading is pretty much limited to Dogsbite.org, which gets less than $50,000 in funding annually, and news reports on severe and fatal dog attacks. What other breed has a lobby backing it up? Why would a breed need lobbying on its behalf? Why is there no historical evidence to support either "nanny dogs" or the idea that pit bulls weren't historically stigmatized?The Little Rascals? They weren't just any kids, they were scruffy troublemakers from the "wrong side of the tracks." So was their dog. And the dog symbolizing the U.S. in WWI posters? In other posters, this dog bears much more similarity to a white bullterrier than the pit bull, and at the time, show bull terriers were considered distinct from "pit" bull terriers. If the pit bull terrier was such an "icon," why isn't the dog shown in those posters unambiguously a pit bull? Why isn't it labeled as a pit bull terrier, and why is it white and not colored like a typical pit bull? Why was a pit bull cast as the companion to poor kids who often clashed with others around them?Why didn't the American Kennel Club recognize pit bulls until 1936? Why did the AKC only agree to admit them under the star-spangled name of..."Staffordshire terrier?" Staffordshire is in England. Why didn't Americans want to take credit for "America's Dog?" Why didn't the American Kennel Club give this "American icon" an American name? The general public is under the impression that this breed is carnivorous, vicious, and, fed on a diet of raw meat, will devour a human being...When the pit bull terrier was introduced into America, he was more commonly found to be owned by prize fighters, saloon keepers and habitues, sporting men and the like. From the start the breed earned an unjust reputation due to his fighting ability and the character of the owner. To this day he is still trying to live down an unjust and undeserved reputation. Joseph Colby, The American Pit Bull Terrier, published 1936. Colby was then one of the world's best-known pit bull breeders, and when he addresses the pit bull's reputation, he makes two key points: Pit bulls had a bad ("unjust") reputation "from the start" (or about the mid-1800s) and pit bulls still had a negative reputation a century after the type originated. A "pit" bulldog belongs to a strain of dogs which have been trained to fight each other in bloody battle to death in a dog pit. Around this pit, or arena, inhuman humans, more brutal than the brutes that they are brutalized, assembled to gratify an evil lust for blood and rejoice in the suffering and death of the wretched animals they had trained to cruelly and ferocity...Small wonder that pit bulldogs have inherited the ferocity of their masters, who trained them to brutality...no pit bulldog should be ever made the companion of a child. Milwaukee Sentinel, Feb. 17 1945 

The bull-and-terrier type, which later became the pit bull, arose because dogfighting became popular after bull-baiting was banned.

The original bulldogs, however, strongly resemble pit bulls and at the time they had a strikingly similar reputation (attacking without provocation, not letting go, not warning before an attack, et cetera.)

In his 1792 A General History of Quadrupeds, Thomas Bewick referred to bulldogs as "the fiercest of all the Dog kind.”

in British Field Sports, an 1818 guide to hunting, William Henry Scott described these dogs as “devoted solely to the most barbarous and infamous purposes” and “the real blackguard of his species." He also argued that the bulldog possessed “no claim upon utility, humanity, or common sense” and concluded that “the total extinction of the breed is a desirable consummation.”

Writes William Bingley in Memoirs of British Quadrupeds (1809: "The Bulldog is remarkable for the undaunted and savage pertinacity with which he will provoke and continue a combat with other animals, and when once he has fixed his bite, it is not without extreme difficulty that he can be disengaged from his antagonist...He is oftentimes fierce and cruel, and seems to possess very little of the generosity and disposition so remarkable and so celebrated in dog species.”

Bingley also warned that bulldogs were especially prone to unprovoked attacks on humans, arguing that this breed “frequently makes his attack without giving the least previous warning." Bewick, too, wrote that “the bull-dog always makes his attack without barking” and because of this, “it is very dangerous to approach him alone.”

The entry for “bulldog” in the fourth edition of The New American Cyclopedia:

So strongly marked is this peculiarity that an able recent writer on the dog considers the bull-dog a sort of abnormal canine monster, a dog idiot, yielding to uncontrollable physical impulses, now of blind ferocity, now of equally blind and undiscriminating maudlin tenderness, which renders him more addicted to licking, slobbering, and mumbling the hand, the boot, or any other part of any person to whom he takes a sudden and causeless liking, and whom he is just as likely to assault the next moment than any other of his species.

Editor George Ripley argued that “the bull-dog does not display the usual intelligence nor fidelity of the dog; since he will capriciously attack his master." It is not true that pit bulls have a special locking mechanism in their jaw but it is true that they hold on when they bite and they won’t let go. In fact, experts recommend that pit bull owners carry something called a "break stick" around at all times: that's literally a tool used to pry a pit bull's jaws open during an attack and they're pretty much just for pit bulls. As to the myth that pit bulls who were man biters were culled by dogfighters, here, this blogger put together a documented list of famously human-aggressive fighting dogs who not only weren't "culled" but were bred so often that they produced over 1,200 known, registered offspring:"The man-biters were culled and the pit bulls were not bred for human aggression myths were created from thin air, complete fabrications. There is not a sliver of truth in the myth that dogmen culled man-biters. Not only weren't human aggressive pit fighters NOT culled, but a talented man-biter was heavily bred, his stud services were in high demand and the stud fees commanded a premium. The progeny of man-biters are still sought out long after he or she has passed away. This Italian game-dog website lists their choice for the Best Ever fighting dogs, three of the five are known man-biters and the other two trace their origins to the others on their "Best" list. Some famous man-biters have their own facebook fan pages. If you happen to be a 10x winner with 3 kills and scratching on the carcass, people tend to overlook a little thing like the danger she poses to people and she is also likely to be nominated for the cover of this month's International Sporting Dog Journal. Some famous man-biters not only have a facebook fan page, they have their own promotional merchandise too."

Let's lay aside the on-its-face absurdity of the "no one knows what a pit bull looks like" shtick: Appellate courts have consistently ruled that people "of ordinary intelligence" can identify pit bulls as pit bulls. Pit bull apologists have spent literally millions of dollars to teach us not only what pit bulls look like but also why we should adopt one and proselytize on social media about how "sweet" and "misunderstood" they are. You can't have this massive multi-million, multi-decade rebranding campaign on social media, TV, movies, books, and everywhere else...and then claim that most people have no clue what a pit bull is.

Here are some of those rulings:

Vanater v. Village of South Point, Ohio: Village criminal ordinance, which prohibited the owning or harboring of pit bull terriers or other vicious dogs within village limits, was not overbroad, even though identification of a "pit bull" may be difficult in some situations.

Toledo v. Tellings, Ohio: The Court found the state and the city have a legitimate interest in protecting citizens against unsafe conditions caused by pit bulls. The evidence presented in the trial court supports the conclusion that pit bulls pose a serious danger to the safety of citizens.

Hearn v. City of Overland Park, Kansas: The court held: (1) the ordinance is not unconstitutionally vague or overbroad; (2) the ordinance does not violate the due process rights of plaintiffs under the United States and Kansas Constitutions; (3) the ordinance does not violate the equal protection clauses of the United States.

Dog Federation of Wisconsin, Inc. v. City of South Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The court found that reference to recognized breeds provides sufficient specifics to withstand a vagueness challenge. With regard to equal protection, the court held that the ordinance is founded on “substantial distinctions” between the breeds of dog covered by the ordinance and other breeds of dog. Moreover, the ordinance is “germane” to the underlying purpose of the ordinance to protect persons and animals from dangerous dogs.

Colorado Dog Fanciers v. City and County of Denver, Colorado: The court found the ordinance to be a valid police power exercise to protect the health and safety of the citizens since the evidence showed pit bulls to be inherently dangerous.

American Dog Owners Ass'n, Inc. v. Dade County , Florida: The District Court held that ordinance sufficiently defined “pit bull” dogs by specifically referencing three breeds recognized by kennel clubs, including a description of the characteristics of such dogs, and provided a mechanism for verification of whether a particular dog was included. The uncontradicted testimony of the various veterinarians reflected that most dog owners know the breed of their dog and that most dog owners look for and select a dog of a particular breed. The Court found that the law afforded fair warning of what is proscribed. I find it kind of funny when people say calling pitbulls dangerous is racist because pitbulls are associated with POC, but here’s an interesting fact: The Ku Klux Klan is inextricably linked to pit bull and dogfighting culture and to this day, the image of a pit bull is still listed as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Found this on reddit:

Pit Bull Owners More Likely to Show Sociopathic Tendencies

A significant difference in criminal behavior was found based on dog ownership type. Owners of high risk dog breeds were significantly more likely to admit to violent criminal behavior, compared to large dog owners, small dog owners, and people who did not own dogs. The high risk dog breed owner sample also reported that they engaged in more types of criminal behavior compared to all other participant groups of criminal behavior (i.e., violent, property, drug, and status).

The interesting addition to our knowledge that that this study provides has to do with the personality characteristics of the high risk dog owners. In general high risk dog breed owners were significantly more likely to engage in sensation seeking and risky behaviors. As a group they were also more careless, selfish and had stronger manipulative tendencies. - Psychological Characteristics Owners of Aggressive Dog Breeds, Psychology Today

"Owners of cited high-risk ("vicious") dogs had significantly more criminal convictions than owners of licensed low-risk dogs." - Ownership of high-risk ("vicious") dogs as a marker for deviant behaviors: implications for risk assessment. - Full text PDF

" Findings revealed vicious dog owners reported significantly more criminal behaviors than other dog owners. Vicious dog owners were higher in sensation seeking and primary psychopathy. Study results suggest that vicious dog ownership may be a simple marker of broader social deviance." - Vicious Dogs: The Antisocial Behaviors and Psychological Characteristics of Owners - Full text PDF

"Vicious dog owners reported significantly higher criminal thinking, entitlement, sentimentality, and superoptimism tendencies. Vicious dog owners were arrested, engaged in physical fights, and used marijuana significantly more than other dog owners." - Vicious Dogs Part 2: Criminal Thinking, Callousness, and Personality Styles of Their Owners

Also see: Personality and Behavioral Characteristics of Owners of Vicious Breeds of Dog (dogbitelaw.com) I’ll edit this for formatting and add to it in the future.