Today, on my local radio station, they were discussing a new leash-free park that one of the nearby towns is putting in (or planning to put in , or whatever). 
 
One of the morning hosts said (I’m paraphrasing.  It was very early) that he wasn’t sure it was a good idea — after all, what about the lawsuits from when “Fido” attacks a 4 year old who’s pulling his tail.
 
This is the same stupid type of argument that leads to smoking bans (I don’t smoke, and I still acknowledge that bans saying that John Doe can’t own a restaurant in which he allows customers to smoke if they want are stupid as heck).  “We can’t allow people to have a little bit of freedom in a small area, because my being free to do what I want EVERY WHERE ELSE isn’t good enough.” 
 
You can breathe smoke free air (or enjoy a park with no loose dogs) in a whole lot of places.  It’s not that big a deal to allow dog owners a small area to enjoy playing with an unleashed dog (leashed dogs don’t do well with, for example, fetch), or to allow smokers a small restaurant to eat in. 
 
Still, for the sake of argument, what does happen when a four-year-old kid in a leash free park gets bitten by a dog whose tail it’d been pulling?  Well, first, measures are taken to determine if it was known the dog was aggressive, or if the dog was only attacking because the kid was torturing it.  If it was previously aggressive, then the owner gets a hefty fine, and the dog is removed from his/her care to go live with someone that can exercise some degree of control over his her animals.  Then, four year old kid is taken away from his parents (who, to avoid getting too much stupidity in our gene pool, should be sterilized), and sent to live with some people who can watch their freakin’ kid!

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