Rhode Island becomes the 16th state to prohibit breed-specific legislation

According to Jodie over at Bless The Bullys, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee has signed HB 5671 which prohibits communities in Rhode Island from having laws targeted at specific breeds of dogs. 

Rhode Island has joined 15 other states in the passing of a law prohibiting breed-discrimination. Many of these are recent passings, as Nevada and Connecticut signed their bills into law just last month, and Massachusetts passsed it's law late in 2012. 

It is also my understanding with this law (although unconfirmed at this point), that it is powerful enough to force cities that currently have breed-specific laws would have to repeal them. This would impact roughly a half dozen communities in Rhode Island.

Overarchingly, as politicians begin talking with experts, and those knowledgable about canine behavior, they overwhelmingly realize how breed-specific policies discriminate against good dogs and good owners, break up families, and are ineffective at improving public safety.  Rhode Island is yet another example of such progress and now, nearly 1/3 of US States prohibit breed discrimination. 

This is obviously great news. Congrats to everyone in Rhode Island that helped make this happen. 

Comments

[MikeSteindog]

With all the activity, I was inspired to actually do an initial count of where we actually stand in the BSL vs. Breed Neutral debate, and created a facebook page to track it. To be honest, I got a bit tired of hearing from one site that 600 towns had passed BSL, while 16 states went neutral. I wanted a sense of actual numbers.

https://www.facebook.com/BreedSpecificLegislationStatistics

Bottom line - the initial count is 550 towns with BSL in effect, which impact approximately 20.4 million people, or 6.5% of the US population. This number includes 6 million impacted by MSN laws. I've chosen not to break out bans vs. restrictions, as many restrictions are defacto bans.

Of those 550, 354 have populations of under 10,000, and 60 have populations under 1,000. The 10 largest represent 50% of the BSL impacted population.

There are 16 states that are breed neutral, which covers 135.7 million people, or 43.26% of the population. This number excludes residents of cities in those states where BSL exists (including NYCHA). I have not included data on towns or counties that are breed neutral.

I've used a known anti-pit bull site as my prime source of data for BSL cities (as they're incentivized to overshoot), and then updated it for accuracy (eliminating 20-30 cities, adding 3-5). Population figures generally come from 2010 census or 2011 population estimates on wikipedia.

[Brent]

Mike,

Thanks for the heads up on your work. I'd love to see your final tally at some point -- but very interesting how one-sided the argument is when you look at the data this way. Thanks for sharing.

[MikeSteindog]

Raw data shared via google doc.

[selwyn marock]

WTG Well done to all those responsible,Good Defeats Evil once again.