It’s Halloween, so make sure to check your kid’s candy to be sure there aren’t razor blades hiding in it!
Or, maybe don’t worry about it because it’s never happened. There are two incidents in history related to this; one was a father that poisoned his own kid for life insurance money, and another was a kid who got into his uncle’s drug stash and blamed the Halloween candy. That’s it. No random drugs, no razor blades.
There’s always a chance of something happening, but cars are a much bigger threat on Halloween. Be safe!
What are some other scary things we hear about that have never actually happened?
Abductions by strangers
Sex trafficking is a major, horrible issue around the world, but it’s often exaggerated to extreme levels. I shared a few examples of that in this post a couple of years ago, but here is the stat that kind of surprised me:
How many children have been abducted by a stranger in the US and flown out of the country to be trafficked? Literally zero. There are no documented cases, ever, of a child being abducted by a stranger and taken out of the country. Now, there are plenty of horrible cases of non-strangers taking people out of the country, but that’s a different conversation. We need to focus on the real concerns, not the almost non-existent “stranger danger”.
Litter boxes in school bathrooms
Conservative politicians have been working lately to prevent students from using litter boxes in school bathrooms. A good example was the F.U.R.R.I.E.S. act in Texas last year, which specifically prohibited this imaginary behavior. Here is a great video breaking it down.
As with others, it’s literally never happened. No one is able to point to a single school where this has occurred.
Transgender bathroom assaults
Among the bigger issues this election season is the concern about trans women going into female bathrooms and assaulting girls in there. As with the previous items on this list, it has literally never happened. There has never been a documented case of a trans woman entering a women’s public bathroom and committing any kind of assault.
The bathroom issue also has the reverse side that many people don’t consider, as shared by Nixon Matthews here. Would you want a bearded trans male to be forced to use a women’s restroom? That feels more problematic to me.
Outside of bathrooms, according to the data on Who’s Making News, there have indeed been five cases of transgender people committing sex crimes against children, plus one drag queen that has as well. Of course, their data also includes the 846 pastors and other religious figures that have committed similar crimes, so that should weigh pretty heavily.
The world is imperfect, and we should always be working to make things better, but fighting these imaginary wars is just strange to me.
Ahhh, now my new dilemma. I’ve heard these stories before, usually without credible evidence. And I’ve been suspect. But now you are telling me, absolutely, without any doubt, they didn’t happen. So, should I trust you? And as you may guess, my default setting is yes, but only for you! But you could be wrong, I think you were once.
I want to send this article to friends who get all stirred up over these issues. But what if I’m propagating misinformation as much or more than they are?