Cars kill more kids on Halloween than Registered Sex Offenders, so we should ban Trunk or Treat

Another Halloween has come and gone. Halloween is my favorite day of the year, primarily because it is by birth date. I was born thirty-eight years ago, on a dark and stormy night. But I digress.

Over the past few years, we see the barrage of Halloween stories designed to scare the people in a different way. There was no shortage of news stories warning parents to check the registry before they send their kids out trick-or-treating. Still, there has not been a "stereotypical kidnapping" of a child by a "Registered Sex Offender" on Halloween so long as the registry has existed. In 2014, no child was murdered by a Registered Sex Offender.

The same cannot be said of motor vehicles. In fact, five children were killed by cars on Halloween this year, eight if you add the three kids (and their mom) killed by a train en route to a Halloween parade.

So cars 8, RSOs zero. And that is just for 2014.

Cars kill far more kids on Halloween than Registered Citizens. Yet, there are a myriad of laws targeting registrants on Halloween, preventing them from engaging in holiday festivities or forced to stay at a jail or police station, or stay home with the lights off. And yet, cars have been more dangerous to kids.

In light of this revelation, I propose we ban "Trunk or Treat." It makes more sense than sex offender Halloween bans, since cars are obviously a greater threat. After all, if it saves JUST ONE CHILD this would be worth it. Do you want dangerous cars around potential victims? Hasn't anyone read the Steven King novel "Christine"? We know cars can be evil, soulless killing machines. Maybe we can make all cars stay at home with the lights out.

I think my solution is more sensible than the sex offender Halloween laws.

As one final thought, there have also been more Halloween poisonings than child killing by Registered Persons on Halloween (a rare event also committed by someone the kid knew rather than by a stranger). But why let reason get in the way of a good Halloween scare? Or rather, Reason.com (with Lenore Skenazy from Free Range Kids)...

Next year, leave out the tricks and stick with the treats.