Montreal’s Bloodthirsty Pit Bull Ban Shows the Essence of the State

Montreal’s city council just passed a law that lets government employees target pit bulls any dog with a “short fur” and a “big head”  for death, forces people to pay a special registration fee dog tax, and forces owners to muzzle their dogs and keep them on a short leash prevent their dogs from having fun.

Vets will be compelled to euthanize dogs that exist in violation of these rules, unless the vet morally objects and “makes an effort” to find another professional to do the service within 48 hours (who decides what is a sufficient effort? And what is the consequence if a vet fails to do this?).

If someone’s dog brutally kills someone, wouldn’t it makes far more sense to simply charge the owner with manslaughter than pass a new law that threatens pet owners and vets for no good reason? Wouldn’t that be better than hiring a new squad of enforcement officers to hunt down dogs with big heads for extermination?

This particularly cruel law highlights the special destructive power of the state — systematic interference with private property. Because yes, our beloved pets are private property.

The state is all about taxes, badges, guns, and death. This law delivers that in a perfect package.

Every law that interferes with private property is just like this, but the Montreal law is a blatantly brutal and vicious example.

Lawmakers, from the municipal to the federal level, are drunk with power. The ballot box supposedly gives them authority to regulate virtually anything and the idea of “property rights” deserves nary a thought.

And every law of the government is backed with guns and badges. Never forget that the government will ultimately kill to enforce the law (usually you, but in this case your dog).

When it comes to most property, the government’s interference usually only affects your use of some resource or object, even your own body.

But regulations like the Montreal ban are a form of especially unjust intervention. You’re not restricting someone from selling a certain type of food or building a house with a weird shape.

Montreal is hiring government agents that threaten the lives of people’s animals that have never hurt anyone.

Animals are property, but they are also friends. Montreal just pointed a gun at you and your friends.