When my brother and I (two years apart) were 10, 11 or 12, we took the bolt out of our dad's .22 rifle, put it in a pocket, put the gun across the handle bars of our bicycle, and rode down Main Street to the hardware store. We bought a box of .22 Long Rifle bullets (Shorts were FORBIDDEN in that gun), and rode to the dump on the edge of town where we shot cans and rats.
No one said a word. No one stopped us. If we met the city cop, he would just wave. He knew us and knew where we were going.
Imagine a couple of fourth and fifth graders doing that today. Helicopters and HumVees would descend on the town from above and from all directions. Our parents would go to jail, and we would become wards of the state, sent to foster homes or detention centers.
That was the 1950's. A simpler, and arguably, a better time. Of course, it was also a time of polio and diptheria and flu. Of wood burning heating and cooking stoves and out houses.
Not sure I would want to go back, but I sure WOULD NOT want to be a kid in our present world.