Risk taking, irrationality, and emotional volatility are pretty common traits of children in that age range. I don't think that is necessarily the case, but for children brought up in the environment of magical Briton that is certainly true for the majority of them. There were times around that age when I felt like setting the world on fire and if I had access to "the button" I might have pressed it. I think I would not have, but I cant be sure.
I think it would be quite incongruous to talk in confident tones about the safety of a junior high-school that stored weapons of mass destruction in an unlocked utility closet.
This is actually an interesting point to bear in mind: the average wizard's ability to cause large numbers of deaths is a lot greater than the average muggle's. It doesn't take a genius on the level of Voldemort to transfigure a hundred pounds of bleach (or name your poison) into air and release it inconspicuously in Diagon Alley.
(The HPMOR discussion thread after this one is here.)
The previous thread is over the 500-comment threshold, so let's start a new Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread. This is the place to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter fanfic and anything related to it. The latest chapter as of 09/09/2011 is Ch. 77.
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. The fanfiction.net author page is the central location for information about updates and links to HPMOR-related goodies, and AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author's Notes.
As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: