Re: What?
schools are different to when I was a lad, (or maybe its a UK/US difference) there were no 'gates' to the school, anyone could easily walk onto the site, I used to carry a pen knife on me for sharpening pencils etc...
None of the eight schools I attended in the US had gates. And I'm pretty sure I carried pen knives to all but perhaps the first. When I were a lad, a boy carried a pocketknife. As did a girl, if she were so inclined.1
Of course that was in the '70s, '80s, and (for graduate school) the '90s and into the present day. A bit before dangerism took over US culture.
When I was in middle school - around 11 years old - my younger brother and I used to walk half a mile from home to the public library, where we'd catch a bus into Haymarket Station in Boston. Then we'd walk from there to Quincy Market and roam the shops for a few hours, and then find our way back to Haymarket, wait for the next bus back to town, and walk home. I suppose if we'd needed to get in touch with our parents we could have found a payphone. But this was normal behavior in the day.
According to the FBI, there are about 100 abductions of children by strangers annually in the US. That makes it about 1/7th the risk of non-boating-related fatal drowning for children, and about 1/40th the risk of all serious drownings (fatal or requiring significant medical assistance).
But it's no secret that people - including many commenting on this story - are complete crap at estimating or researching risks, or determining what a proportionate response to risk would be. I blame the educational systems of the past ... um ... forever.
1Captain Nancy Blackett, Amazon pirate, was never without hers. And that was in the '30s and '40s.2
2And no doubt Taqui Altounyan, on whom Nancy was based, always carried one too.