I can understand both sides of this. During my freshman year at my high school everyone was allowed to carry their backpacks around and it made life so easy. Sophomore year they changed the rule to say we weren't allowed to have any type of bag with us - not even drawstring bags for gym class. Like you could take it to gym but you would have to put it in your locker before your next class or you'd get a detention. At first I thought it was all stupid and such as hassle to have to go to my locker all the time. But during my junior year the public school in my town had a kid bring a gun to school and he shot five kids, killing three of them. There was a thread about it on here at the time, it was Chardon High School, people have probably heard of it. There's no way he got that gun in the school without a backpack to hide it in. So while I agree that it's a huge hassle to carry around books without a backpack, it definitely can hide dangerous weapons.