I’m not sure what the answer is. I watched a story on the news one night about some pits that mauled a child and it was the second time the same dogs had attacked a child. The city had no legislation to compel an owner to give up a dog even after it had attacked a person. That was one extreme. Banning out right seems to be the other. I’m not even sure it would work. What are you banning, what would constitute a Pit, could it be circumvented by mixing breeds, would your local thug comply with such a law? I expect the wrong dogs would suffer.
The whole debate reminds me of a court case in a Vachss novel about a lawyer looking for a stay of execution on a dog. I’ve inserted the link below. Vachss writes a very dark series of novels about a character named Burke who is not a very nice guy but takes out his unpleasantness mostly on child abusers. Definitely not for everyone but he loves his vicious dogs.
I think in most cases the problem lies with the owners not the dogs:
"That's a lot of crap," I told the fat man. "Dobermans don't turn on you. They got a bad rep for it, but they don't deserve it. See, what happens, a guy hears all the stories, okay? He gets a Dobie as a puppy, he figures he's going to make sure the dog never turns on him when he grows up. So he beats the hell out of the dog every day. Takes control. Dominates. It's easy to make a puppy afraid of you. Makes some people feel tough, you understand? But Dobermans, one way they're different from other dogs, they got good memories. Real good. So, one day, the guy goes to beat up his dog and the dog says, 'Un huh, not today, pal.' And the dog nails him. Like he deserves. Then this guy, this guy who beat his own puppy, he says, 'The son of a ***** turned on me.' You understand what I'm telling you?" This story appears in Born Bad by Andrew Vachss
When I was growing up it was Huskies and German Sheppard’s we feared. I think this link shows it about the character of the dog:
http://www.vachss.com/dogs/vachss_dog.html
As for the fictional court case - Every dog must have his day:
http://www.vachss.com/dogs/dog_stories/devil_on_line.html