Back in the day it was common for several of the neighborhood boys to take our BB guns and pellet guns over to the abandoned gravel plant and shoot up whatever we could. We’d walk through the neighborhood, there and back, with our “deadly weapons.”
Can you imagine what would happen to us today? SWAT team, detention, waiver to adult court, and branded as “terrorists,” I’m sure.
Here in the boondocks where I live, in California, it is still a common sight to see kids walking down the road with BB and pellet guns. Sometimes with .22 rifles. Of course this is a very rural area, with the lowest crime rate in the entire state.
When I went to high school in the 70’s it was common for students to have pocket knives and a number of use had rifles ih the gun rack in the back window of our trucks for hunting before or after school. Nobody cared! A steak knife in the act of being used properly, shame on her.
We had permanent archery targets in a big vacant lot, BB gun 'fights' in the woods (no eyes ever shot out, maybe a couple of bruises), and toy guns that really did look real ('Lytle' I believe) and I was on top of the world because I had a real live '03 training rifle...
All that and lead paint too.