there were 38 fatal dog attacks in 2012 in the US [View all]

[magical thyme]

That's 38 fatalities in a population of ~330,000,000. That 1 fatality for every 8,684,210 people (or 0.01/100,000). The total dog population in the US, btw, for 2012 was estimated at 70-78,000,000. That's 1 fatality for every 1,842,105 dogs (or 0.05/100,000).

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-08-06/pet-ownership-down/56882786/1
http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/pdfs/pets-fact-sheet.pdf

To put this in perspective:

there were 506 murders in Chicago in 2012...with a population of 5.7M, that's 1 in every 5,347 or 18.7/100,000 people.

In LA, there were 300 murders as of 12/29/12, or 1/13,333.

Philly had 300+ murders in 2012. NYC had 414.

Yet none of these make the top 10 list of "America's 10 Deadliest Cities for 2012."

Flint, MI was #1, with 65.9/100,000.
Memphis, TN was #10 with 24.1/100,000.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/22686/america-s-10-deadliest-cities-2012



Of the dog attacks, more than half were by family pets and on their own property. Some parents left infants on the floor alone with dogs adopted only a short time earlier (as little as a week).

In numerous instances, children had wandered off onto other people's property, where the dogs were chained or confined.

In numerous instances, parents were charged with negligent homicide because they failed to watch their babies and toddlers.

Some fatal attacks were by dogs that were running loose and known in the neighborhood to be aggressive -- so why weren't laws enforced and those dogs rounded up and taken from their owners *before* the fatal attack?

http://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2012.php