Twin powers
Wednesday, 7 May 2008 23:45 — monadoThe kittens are resting between bouts of mischief.
Twenty-five years ago, Toronto declared itself a nuclear-weapons-free zone.
A few years ago, there was a big debate in Toronto about dog breeds: pit bulls, which is a generic term covering a couple of breeds such as Staffordshire Terriers. They’re considered dangerous. I read that in the U.S. one year, the greatest number of fatal dog attacks, 13, was from Golden Retrievers. They just don’t get no respect so people aren’t careful not to provoke them.
Similarly, people panic over one of the eight fatal cougar attacks this century, while the most dangerous animal in the woods measured by fatal attacks is the white-tailed deer with its cute, sharp little front hooves.
Unfortunately, people who want to look dangerous sometimes adopt dogs as accessories. Those people want the dog to look dangerous, too, or to be aggressive and they don’t properly discipline them. They should lose their dogs, one way or another. (My grandfather was working as a postman once when he was attacked by two mastiffs. He killed both of them. A swift blow to the end of the nose will do it.) The local by-law in Toronto is now that pit bulls or dogs that look like pit bulls must be neutered and must be muzzled in public. Also, I think you can’t acquire a new one, though you can keep an old one.
Toronto has a bad habit of jumping on the bandwagon. There’s now a move afoot to ban handgun ownership, even though the existing laws are sufficient to deal with illegal handguns or dangerous carrying. A hobbyist storing a registered gun at a gun club or carrying it properly secured is not a problem. People with smuggled or stolen guns carrying them unsecured are the problem.
I don’t want the city wasting my tax money to make useless, grandiose, feel-good gestures.
