Friday, March 5, 2010

Ban Lightning, Not Pitbulls


I drew up this logo for a Facebook Group that my girlfriend started, The Society to Ban Lightning, Not Pit Bulls. From the page:
"Lightning kills more people per year then pit bulls do. Logically we should be concentrating our effort into putting lightning rods at 50 foot intervals all over America. Please help us!"
It's a kind of lighthearted approach, with a serious message. The main design and lettering is a parody of the first Bad Brains album. I re-drew the lettering to match, and the pit bull I had drawn for a t-shirt company (which never used it). If you use Facebook, feel free to join!

7 comments:

BradyDale said...

The difference between Lightning and Pitbulls is that lightning is really random. Pitbulls are psychotic dogs bred for strength and ferocity for the express purpose of killing other dogs.
They are like handguns with brains. Sorry... totally not with you on this one at all.
And even if they don't always quite manage to kill people, they hurt a lot of little kids. Really badly.

Unknown said...

You clearly have never been around a pit bull, and have bought into media propaganda. You can raise any dog to be a ferocious killer, just like any person. Just because some people have raised them for fighting, doesn't make the entire breed bad.

BradyDale said...

Look into the history. They were bred for fighting. They took the strength of the English Bull and crossed it with the ferocity of the terrier.

The ferocity is built in. Like German Shepherds, they sometimes just snap for no reason at all. Too often.

And since the whole breed was created for fighting (and, yes, look into it: that's why the pit bull was bred in the first place) they have it built in.

Every dog breed was bred for a reason. Even if they aren't used for that reason anymore, there nature is still there. And pit bulls are the worst.

notmarybeth said...

So is the answer then to just euthanize them all? I'm Jeff's girlfriend who started the group. I work in the veterinary field specializing in emergency and deal with pit bulls almost everyday, often under terrible/painful circumstances. I have a healthy respect for the breed and I'm not a blindly "pro pit bull person." But from my own personal professional experience there are many other breeds that make me much more nervous.

The point is that anatomically pit bulls are more dangerous than most other breeds of dogs. However they're also the breed with the highest numbers in shelters in America right now. The majority of these dogs weren't specifically bred for fighting, even if their ancestors were. It's not their fault that they've been over bred to the point that they're EVERYWHERE. The answer isn't to euthanize them all just as it isn't to just stick them into any household that will take them.

Having owned a pit bull and other breeds as well, I can say that they're not a killer breed but rather a breed that needs strong training, discipline, and follow up. They need to be shown appropriate behavior and they need to always be spayed and neutered.

So no, they're not all happy fluffy rainbow dogs that should be left around little kids. (Personally I think NO dog should be alone around kids though.) But they're also not senseless killers. They're misunderstood.

The answer isn't to ban them. The answer is also not to just re-home them all. The answer is to educated people, screen the dogs before adoption, and keep an open mind.

notmarybeth said...

And back the the point: It's damn good graphic design! <3

pw! said...

first and foremost, great work again Jeff

alas, around 2002 i rescued an abused pit bull and thought with my big heart and good surroundings my girlfriend and i could give her a good home. we gave her all the love attention and regiment and discipline any parent could give, despite knowing this was a damaged one-person dog. the day came when she turned on us, and we couldn't even feed her without her trying to viciously maul us even from inside the cage we had to put her in. my girlfriend made the tough call to put her down, which, if you love your dog, is one of the worst days of your life.

but that's dogs too. i agree no dog should be unsupervised around kids, and the second it turns on a person, you have to make the touch call. i had a Labrador retriever, seriously maybe the most gentle sweet dog on the planet, but you bet my folks warned me if he ever bit anyone, it was to the pound with him. we are all of us only animals.

i didn't realize there was such a cause to ban and kill pitbulls. i wonder how it applies to opinions on capital punishment (assuming the justice system could be distributed fairly, which, will never ever happen). mostly, in my experience, i've found that most of the time, it's the owners who need putting down, training there dogs at 3AM to be vicious at the park and beyond. those are the people i want a ban on. but then there's that other time when the pit bull was just being a pit bull. and it was depressing, but it was life, albeit specific

7atlantic said...

Could you post the actual FACTS about how few people are killed by dogs of ALL BREEDS, on average in one year? As well as the facts about how few of those dogs are verified to be pit bulls? The media hype is absurd. This is what people need to understand. I've been attacked by an Afghan Hound. I wouldn't own that breed, but I've owned bully breed dogs for 25 years, without a single incident of any of them biting a person.

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