It's about revenue enhancement more than public safety. In the old days, the schoolyard fight is just that. These days, it's a police matter.
I am going on seventy and have never been arrested, no charges other than traffic violations but if I could live my young life over now I would likely wind up in jail for life. I was a very easy going lad but by the time I was ten I had been in multiple schoolyard fights, actually drawing blood at least once with just my hands and I was always defending myself, I was never aggressive. In the fifties in Carolina if a boy did NOT get in schoolyard fights ever he was considered to be weak. It was nothing out of the ordinary to see a couple of boys slug it out like prizefighters and though the school did not approve it was never a major issue, it usually resulted in a few cautionary words from a teacher or at most a visit to the office of the principal. I carried a pocketknife ever since I can remember, including at school, I literally don’t recall when I did not have one but would never have dreamed of trying to cut someone. I have never done any law breaking that I am ashamed to speak of now but I could have been sent to prison for years at that and anyone doing the same now probably would be.
I am very aware that if everyone of us were to be caught, tried, convicted and sentenced every time we break a law we would ALL be in jail and that includes ESPECIALLY most judges and law enforcement people. Anyone who thinks they can live a week without breaking a law had better be lying in bed paralyzed.