Julie Bove wrote:
>
> I was also reading that the world now isn't really all that more dangerous
> for kids than it was when we were kids but our perceptions of it is. Most
> likely to TV and the Internet. We see that something bad happened to some
> kid and all of a sudden we see danger lurking at every turn.

Back when I was a kid, we all played "Army" all the time. We got toy
guns and real helmets and other things from surplus stores for
Christmas. When we got older, we even had BB gun wars and wore
glasses.

IMO, this let us get all the young boy aggression out as play and we
became responsible adults. Then my hippy generation became parents and
didn't let their kids play "Army." Since they didn't get this
aggression/violence out of their systems as kids, they grew up to form
gangs and use real guns to kill "the enemy."