It is time to ban large dogs

I don't want this story to serve as another reason to lose faith in humanity, but it is difficult to wake up and look at the news day after day and see stories about hyper-aggressive dogs attacking people or other animals completely unprovoked. Unfortunately, this is one of those stories.

Gabrielle Giffords’ husband pulled his daughter’s dog off of a sea lion in Laguna Beach over the weekend.

The incident, which was captured on video, happened around 1:40 p.m. Saturday at Goff Cove Beach by the Montage Laguna Beach.

Retired astronaut Mark Kelly’s 18-year-old daughter, who was on vacation with her father and Giffords, was walking the American bulldog on a leash when the 65-pound dog saw the sea lion, ran off and attacked.

Nathan, who declined to give his last name, happened to be having lunch nearby when he started to film the chaotic scene on his cellphone.

The graphic video, which he later posted on YouTube, showed the young girl screaming while her dog had the sea lion by the neck.

Two other women tried to help until Kelly finally arrived and forced the dog off of the animal.

The sea lion later died.

I think the only solution to this problem is to ban all dogs over a certain size that look a certain way. Why do we need to have 65-pound dogs? When an animal that large becomes aggressive bad things can happen. I understand there are a lot of responsible dog owners out there, but there are some who simply cannot handle a dog of this size. Also, what does a 65-pound dog do that a 10 or 15-pound dog does not do? Did they get the dog because they liked it? Because it made them feel safe? Because it made their daughter feel safe? That's not a good enough answer.