We also have a male Rhodesian Ridgeback/pit bull mix. He is huge. Ridgebacks are known as "lion dogs" because they're able to hold off packs of lions.
You can be scared for me because I'm not scared of them in the least.
You don't understand dog (or any other animal) selective breeding. Selective breeding is simply a slow version of genetic engineering done in labs today.
With dogs we have some basic wolf-traits in all of them. Here are just a few that seem to present genetically within the pack based on how evolution itself selected for certain innate behaviors (evolution is the slowest of selective breeding).
1. Pack loyalty. 2. Urge to kill 3. Urge to obey alpha or become alpha by struggle. 4. instinct to heel the prey in a pack hunt. 5. Instinct to head the prey in a pack hunt. 6. Urge to fight viciously to defend or promote the self. 7. Urge to fight viciously to defend the pack, not caring for the self. 8. Urge to bite, latch on. Depending on the mix in the pack is how the pack's power heirarchy pans out. And it usually pans out to a cooperative end of getting food and raising a new generation of pups with the most success.
With pit bulls, #1 is a precariously small vestige of what it used to be. And that's why pit bulls justify killing their alphas (owners & family) on such a regular basis.
In most breeds we deselected #8 & #2 and tried to emphasize #1 and juggle the others to suit the needs of the breed of dog. In pit bulls, they ramped #6 up to the max, along with #8. #2 & #3 are still in good working order and explains why pit bulls attack their owners and kill them more often than is comfortable to talk about.
I personally wouldn't want the deadly cocktail of a dog whose DNA predisposed him to like to bite and kill with a de-emphasized pack loyalty coupled with an urge to become alpha by struggle. But that is the pit bull. And those qualities served very well in the fighting ring, a place they were bred to be. But at home with the wife and kids? Holy **** no.