Are you sure you want a Burmese python as a pet?  Watch this video and you might change your mind. 

Burmese pythons are large, heavy bodied Asian pythons which can grow to over 20 feet in length.  Handling large constrictors alone is never recommended.  These snakes have the speed and power to be potentially dangerous, even to adult humans. 

An example is a local man who was bitten by a 12-foot Burmese python several years ago.  He walked into a northern Kentucky emergency room with a softball-sized hematoma on his hand.  An emergency room doctor stated that the snake had broken all the blood vessels in the top of his hand.  This person was lucky there was help nearby and his injuries were limited to his hand. 

Luck is not always around.  In 2000 an 8 year old Pennsylvania girl was killed by the family's pet Burmese python when it escaped from it's cage.  She was found with the snake wrapped around her on the kitchen floor of their home.  The snake was less than 10 feet long.

According to the American Museum of Natural History, a University of Washington zoologist named Brad Moon determined asphyxiation coupled with an increase in thoracic and venous pressures allows constrictors to kill in less than 1 minute. Moon's research shows that constriction can cause the pressure inside prey to rise to twice the animal's normal blood pressure. As a result, the heart cannot keep pumping blood to the brain, lungs, and vital organs.  Often the prey animal will die of a stroke or heart attack long before suffocation is complete. 

As for a Burmese python's strike, they can easily extend up to 2/3 the length of their body in a single movement. The strike itself takes only fractions of a second. In the following video, this Burmese python reacts instantly once he finds his prey. In less than a second he strikes the rabbit and has one coil wrapped around.