Historically, evidence has suggested that breed specific legislation (BSL) fails to reduce the incidence of dog bites; this study, published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, provides an explanation of why BSL has failed to reduce the number of dog bite–related injuries.

Using dog bite data from various sources in conjunction with estimates of the populations of various breeds/types of dogs, researchers calculated that a prohibitive number dogs (100,000) of a specific breed/type would have to be removed and banned from a community in order to prevent one serious dog bite. This number would have to be doubled to prevent a second serious dog bite.

There is no scientific evidence suggesting that one type of dog is more likely to injure people than another. These researchers believe that BSL is based primarily on fear and that BSL supporters are unable to show “high efficacy of the fear-based solution.”