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I will not have my children deprived of their right to grow into adulthood

If you don't shield them from simple dangers they cannot understand, then that is exactly what you may deprive them of. A two year old is not ready to contend with rattlesnakes, mountain lions, electrical sockets, etc.

Invariably, any criticism of safety obsession is met with something along the lines of "so you're saying we should fill playgrounds with active landmines and light machine guns?"

Danger needs to scale with a child's ability to handle it, and which is likely higher than the average American parents' tolerance.

A two-year-old isn't ready to contend with rattlesnakes. A sixteen-year-old absolutely is. Somewhere in that timeline, there's a stair-step in the danger function, and that's just part of life.

Safety-obsessed Americans would ensure that the rattlesnake stays behind glass forver.

What is gained by selling rattlesnakes to children in stores? The harms outweigh the benefits. People who need to study rattlesnakes have ample opportunity. Similarly, chemicals that are extremely risky to handle should not be sold to children but introduced in a classroom. (OP's example is different because the chemistry sets he complains about not being available actually are available to children today.) It's not like there isn't plenty of other chemistry to learn about, and this setup makes it more likely that more children will survive as chemists to make important discoveries. (See the David Hahn story.)

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