In the '50s we could bring hunting rifles to school during the deer season so we wouldn't have to go all the back way home to get them after school. Nobody batted an eye as they were kept safely in the coat closets at the back of the classrooms until after school, and the teachers knew they were there.
Of course, this was New York, not Massachusetts, so maybe things were different there? But, somehow, I doubt it.
It's been quite a down hill spiral in the Blue States, hasn't it? And it's not much better in the Red ones. This has gone from a free country to a totally paranoid one where kids have to wear bicycle helmets to ride tricycles and are raised scared to death of their own shadows.
At the risk of being villified I will state my firm belief the situation is because more women are in positions of authority.
Women tend to be more socialistic and less phyically active.
The women teachers of my youth were more likely to punish both parties for fighting rather than attempt to determine who was the aggressor.
Read the Democrats' book "Why Mommy is a Democrat",and be afraid,very afraid.