When I got my ball pythons, a few people freaked out. Because they are PYTHONS they will get giant and kill my cats, dogs, and child!
The saddest part is, unless you are actually in the field of herpetology and know better, media bias and hysteria has inundated all fields. I was talking to a coworker last week (a fellow biologist! ) about this ban. not only was she not aware of it (not a huge surprise), but she was convinced boa constrictors were invasive and had populations throughout this country! She didn't even realize boa constrictor is its own species, and not a term to use when referring to boids in general. Part of her faulty knowledge has come from the USGS study trying to show burmese pythons can colonize all of the southern areas of the United States. I took probably a good hour explaining all of it.