Actually it's not that different a world and that stuff happened in the "good old days" too. It just gets more publicity now.
And kidnapping by strangers is still incredibly rare. The vast majority of Amber Alerts and missing children are taken by one of the parents in a divorce.
YEESSSSS!!!
THANNKKKK YOUUUU!!!!
All this "sniff...poor little Kevin might have been kidnapped stuff" is B.S.
The simple fact of the matter is that most kids are kidnapped and/or molested by a friend or family member, not some perv on the street.
Furthermore, as the story notes, kids within a "mile and a half" of the school aren't bussed anyway. Won't the legions of perverts that snatch kids from the street every day just snatch them in that first mile and a half?
Or, are the allegedly small government conservatives of "Free Republic" going to start demanding that THOSE kids get "bussed" too?
And there were no school shootings that I remember before the late seventies. With the exception of one well publicized case in Bath Michigan.
I do not ever remember hearing of ANY kidnapings, rapes and murders of children by predators before that time as well. That's not to say it didn't happen.
I do believe that times have changed, it is not the same world I grew up in, it is a far more dangerous place.
The raw numbers may be lower, but if anyone ever tried to compile a ratio of kidnapping/assault/harassment per unsupervised outing, I'd bet that the ratio would be much, much, much higher than in years past.
The White House issued a grim press release in August of 2002, stating that that each year."More than 58,000 children are abducted by non-family members" and "Many of these children are returned home quickly, but some are not." There are heartbreaking horror stories of children abducted and murdered, seemingly by random, at the hands of strangers. Yet too many times children are abducted, molested, or killed by a neighbor or someone else known to the child or the family.
http://www.whoishe.com/PressReleases/children04152003.html
That's an interesting reflection, Strategerist. Just curious, did your home community ever experience the following?
[ Snip ]"...When detained at Eubank Elementary on Tuesday, Banshefsky had a box cutter, Swiss army knives and traces of both methamphetamine and marijuana.
'It looked like he had marijuana and other drugs on him,' said Chief Lovato. 'There was no question: He was on drugs himself...' "
Did you have shoes? I didn't, just rags I wrapped around my feet while trudging my lonely way through the forest to get to a one-room school house clutching my lunch sack full of lard sandwichs.
>Actually it's not that different a world and that stuff happened in the "good old days" too. It just gets more publicity now.
And kidnapping by strangers is still incredibly rare. <
Today, the danger from busy roads has increased exponentially in all parts of the country. Even if young kids are allowed to walk, usually they are accompanied by older kids. Five year old children have no business walking by themselves, and someone's head should roll over this situation.
All the kids are "safely" ensconced with their boob tubes and play stations.