PREACH! The whole debate over pit bulls really serves, at a secondary level, as a proxy for a debate about race. “If we can get the environment just right, the pit bull will be totally fine and never randomly ‘snap’ and maul a granny or two-year old.” The problem is that that level of unhinged, neurotic ferocity is bred, literally, into the DNA of the dogs. Even if “some pitties aren’t violent,” pit bulls in aggregate are. At best, they’re like playing with a loaded gun.

The error is that some people reason that, if we can prove that pit bulls aren’t slaves to their biology, then we can prove that people aren’t, either. It’s a category error: while biology and race do play some role in a humans’ behaviors, humans possess souls and wills that allow them to mitigate and control those instincts and impulses (and the Holy Spirit Can truly Transform people by Transforming their souls).

A dog doesn’t have that luxury, and some dogs—even with lots of training and love—are simply going to be aggressive. There are endless stories of pit bulls being precious lambs for ten years and then turning on their owners or killing a kid.

But acknowledging that pit bulls are bred for violence means—gasp!—potentially acknowledging that people’s biology might influence them, too, and we can’t have that! We’re all soulless blank slates (and if that’s the case, the pit bulls must be, too). It’s ridiculous.