So much hysteria on this thread.
Dogs are animals, they have sentience, they behave like, well, animals. You cannot hold a person responsible for murder or manslaughter because a dog has killed someone. From the dogs point of view a person is just another animal, and animals kill other animals, sometimes for food, sometimes for territory, sometimes animals even kill and eat their own young.
If someone climbs a fence at a zoo and sticks their arm inside a tigers cage, we don't blame the tiger for ripping their arm off, we would all say how stupid the person was. But for some reason people don't seem to be able to apply the same logic to dogs. XL dogs are selective bread to be as big, strong and aggressive as possible, so it's not really a surprise that so many people are killed by them. It's like keeping a lion in your house. You know how cats like to play with toys and sometimes scratch an bite people, but a tabby isn't going to kill anyone, a lion however, behaving in exactly the same way absolutely would kill you. But they're both still cats. Same difference between a jack russel and an XL.
Blaming owners for a dogs behaviour is just nonsense, dogs are animals, they think for themselves. BUT, some dogs are dangerous, like some cats are dangerous, depends on the size of the animal. So a better solution would be to pass a law criminalising the possession of certain berrds who by their very nature are exceptionally dangerous, such as the XL.
So, let's say a MINIMUM term of imprisonment for anybody found in possession/ownership/control of known dangerous dog breeds. And all animals of type PTS, without exception. That way we could ensure the "extinction" of those breeds.
Remember, we actually allow people to train dogs to attack and bite people, and we pay them to do it. So it's a little hypocritical to ignore police dogs and their behaviour, but suddenly call for the imprisonment of "Dave" who's Alsation got a little bit over excited at the park and knocked a kid over.