I took a few pit mixes out of the local humane society last summer for "Doggy Day Out", basically an opportunity for dogs who need new homes to get exposure to the community and get away from the kennel for a few hours, and they were universally friendly, sweet dogs.

There's some selection bias, obviously, but their reputation is definitely overblown.

They are very sweet dogs, until they're not.

I was at a friend's place with some others from school, we were about 14-15 years old, his family had this seemingly sweet pitbull, always wanting to be pet, super playful but kind. That day it attacked one of our classmates, out of the blue, we were sitting on the backyard, the dog playing with some rope toys, brought it to us sitting, this guy picked up the toy to throw it and before he could even started the motion this pitbull jumped on his face and started attacking.

It was so jarring, unexpected, and brutal that I got traumatised for life from pitbulls, I don't like to be close to them, don't like when I'm biking and there's one without a muzzle being walked around, and I don't want to pet one as much as it can look super friendly and calm. Seeing how fast it could turn into a murder machine even when growing up in a loving family that never trained it to be a guard/attack dog, and probably never treated the dog badly, made me very anti-pitbulls.

Most dog attacks in the country I grew up in are from pitbulls, including a few kids killed every year, the statistics don't lie. The breed requires people who aren't assholes so it doesn't become dangerous, I don't trust owners to do that, even more when it's a breed for "macho" guys to show off at the same time.

They are banned in Ontario, Canada for a good reason and banned in UK for the same reasons.

The only time my dog was ever randomly attacked was a pitbull and you quickly learn talking to other dog owners how common this is. Nothing clears out a dog park like a pit bull showing up.