Editorial: Ban dangerous dogs - Marine Corps Community, discussions, blogs, photos & video - Marine Corps Times

Editorial: Ban dangerous dogs

Treat every weapon as if it was loaded.

Words to live by when it comes to handling firearms. The same holds true for dogs.

Last week’s tragic death of a Marine’s three-year-old son at Camp Lejeune, N.C., points out just how fast it can all go wrong. A civilian friend visiting the boy’s on-base home brought his pet pit bull along. The boy upset the dog.

The dog did what dogs do, in this case with deadly results.

There was little the Corps could do to prevent the tragedy, short of refusing to let the friend on base.

But while some bases bar pit bulls, Camp Lejeune does not.

At Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., pit bulls are considered potentially dangerous. “Potentially dangerous dogs such as full or mixed breeds of pit bulls (Stafford Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, and other similar breeds) present an unreasonable risk to the health and safety of base personnel, and therefore are prohibited aboard base,” reads the Quantico dog order.

Such inconsistency is out of character for the Corps.

Marines and their families have a right to a safe neighborhood if they choose to live on base. And while Marines certainly have the right to own and keep a dangerous dog, that doesn’t mean they also have the right to keep them on base.

They don’t.

In 2005, a Marine’s Rottweiler got loose in Lejeune base housing and grabbed 9-year-old Ashley Gaston by the head as she played outside. The child, now 12, needed reconstructive surgery to reattach part of her ear and fix her face and neck. She faces more surgeries in the future.

“How many children have to be either killed or grossly disfigured before the Marine Corps takes this seriously?” asks David Sheldon, the attorney representing the Gastons in their civil lawsuit against the Corps. “It’s clear to anyone who drives around Camp Lejeune that dogs routinely run loose. The Marine Corps has a problem. and they’re not dealing with it.”

Now it’s time to deal with it. The Corps legislates everything from haircuts to tattoos and motorcycles to firearms. It ought to do the same with dangerous animals, and do so with a uniform policy banning pit bulls and other dangerous dogs from all installations.

No more children should suffer because the Corps failed to act.