This is the major problem right here. Too many people are too eager/willing to label non Pit Bull dogs as Pit Bulls, without the thought to the implication it has. This causes inflation in statistics, skewing the numbers.

"Pit Bull" is too broad of an umbrella term which is overly abused. This is what needs to stop first and foremost. It's kinda like seeing a hyper kid and saying "oh! He has ADHD!", when he's really... just a kid. It's detrimental to people with ADHD to just dilute the term, because it becomes much harder to accommodate and help those actually with ADHD.

For all intents and purposes the only "Pit Bull" breeds should be the American Pit Bull Terrier, the American Staffordshire Terrier and by a larger extension the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. These can be considered "Pit Bull breeds", not American Bulldogs, not Boxers, nope. They are "Bully" breeds, but NOT Pit Bulls.

With the over-sensationalize of Pit Bulls we have created a mythical creature out of them. They're no longer a dog in many peoples eyes, but a beast, a Cerberus, if you will.

So, when people see a large scary dog with any of the rather vague and broad attributes of a Pit Bull, they're quick and sure to label it as such. Because what other kind of dog could be big and scary like that?

Most of the time, they are truly Mutts (with no major contributing factor from any breed), they just have a physical likeliness to the Pit Bull breeds (blocky head, stout, muscular body, etc).

In the long run people don't see the harm in doing this, while this helps no one at all, and only hurts these poor dogs. A while back someone near me was attacked by a dog, they knowingly mislabel a Pit Bull just for the purpose of "identification". Rather than describe the dog as he looked, they chose to label the dog a Pit Bull, because we all get what that is synonymous with.

When the dog in question was caught, it ended up being a Mastiff Boxer mix. Zero Pit in him.

Hopefully we'll see a strong change in education, and care for what we're doing to these dogs and rather than mass identification, we'll be more responsible and cautious with our words, because in this case they do literally kill.