I'm going to make a guess and say fear of dogs, but I didn't look it up, so don't take my word on it.
And I agree with everything you said about small dogs often times doing a lot of damage, especially on children. Yes, a pit will probably do more damage than a pomeranian on an infant, but at the end of the day, the child is dead either way, isn't it? I saw that article about the pom as well, including pictures of the poor baby.
It was horrible.
That said, the only dog that ever gave me stitches was a cocker spaniel mix. I was out walking her, and she found a bone. I didn't try to take it from her or even get near her with it, but the second she found it, she started snarling at me like crazy. It was a retractable leash so I gave her a lot of room and pretended to ignore her while she ate it, but she very suddenly put it down, charged at me, and sunk her teeth into the back of my leg. She would NOT let go for anything; I was shaking my leg and yelling and batting her on the head with the leash - the dog was relentless. I finally had to (and I felt bad, but I was getting rather injured) punch her in her little nose, at which point she finally yelped and let go. I got her back to the kennel without a further incident, but man - talk about food agressive! That is a dangerous dog in my mind; if she has food even within her sight range she'll attack, not just if you try to touch or take it!
I also was attacked by two cairn terriers while taking a walk outside of my college. They jumped the short little fence the owner had and each latched onto a leg. Luckily I had big boots on, but if I hadn't, I'd have definately been hurt, because one of them ripped my pant leg all to hell. I yelled at the dogs and shook them off, and luckily the owner heard the commotion and called them off, or I'd have probably had to hurt at least the one so it'd leave me alone. I gave him a good stern yelling about fence height, that's for sure!
Side note... why don't they ban agressive cat breeds if they will dog breeds? Several breeds of cats, particularly the wild hybrid kind (I'd like to strangle everyone who breeds them because wild animals and mixes of them are NOT suitible for captivity), are often very agressive by nature. While cat bites probably won't kill you from trauma, cat saliva has harmful bacteria that can cause deadly infections; the rate of infection from cat bites is about 3x's that of dogs. People have needed fingers amputated, surgeries to drain abcesses, etc. from cat bites. I know a woman who almost died from one that went to the bone, because she got a bone infection that lead to septicemia! Cats have all four feet and their teeth to use as weapons. And they go for the face by nature. In veterinary practice, we consider them much more dangerous than dogs due to their agression and unpredictable nature. My mom needed stitches and shots after a feral cat scaled her leg, biting and slashing all the way up, to attack another cat she was carrying, and I don't know if anyone read the post where I mentioned Ben, a cat at a shelter I worked at, but he gave many people stitches and they will probably be euthanizing him. I even know someone who had to be rushed to the hospital because a cat bit into her wrist and hit a vital artery - she nearly bled to death from a
cat bite.
I guess what I'm trying to point out here is that any animal can be dangerous. What are we going to do, ban every animal that could potentially bite, scratch, or infect a human? I guess we'll all just have to look into the joys of snailkeeping.
used to let the kids crawl all over her and often played of the lead with other dogs with no problem at all. You're right i think there should be classes for responsable owners and they should be registered dogs and owners.
/www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html
However, I do believe that something must be done. Often times the dogs involved in the killing/mauling of children were family pets, described as 'sweet and soft as a kitten'. 
(If it's not obvious, I was being sarcastic 
