We can kill off Halloween, or we can accept that it isn’t dangerous and give it back to the kids. Then maybe we can start giving them back the rest of their childhoods, too.

This is from Lenore Skenazy, “‘Stranger Danger'” and the Decline of Hallowe’en,” Wall Street Journal, October 27.
She also writes:

We still buy it [the idea that our neighbors turn into murderers one night every year], even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger’s Halloween candy. (Oh, yes, he concedes, there was once a Texas boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix. But his dad did it for the insurance money. He was executed.)

The whole thing is worth reading.
Once you “get” her reasoning, another issue presents itself: Is it really a good idea to have the TSA mess with us when we’re trying to get on flights?