I ran across the following knife video while researching the post The New Knife. It is so unsettling that I had a dream about it this weekend.

Why is it unsettling? Perhaps it is because it introduces the idea that someone could come up to ask an innocent question, and a few seconds later you could be dead:

So you watch that, and the next question is, are there any defense options? This video suggests that there are:

As does this one:

However, the presence of mind necessary to pull this off seems high. And it would require a hair-triggered, violent response. And you would be needing to train for the situation on a fairly regular basis. Not a happy place to be.

I found myself in the exact opposite of the “knife attack scenario” last week. I spend a lot of time at elementary schools. I was at a school that happened to be having a book sale in the library. These sales are pretty common as a fundraiser; the school sells books on behalf of a publisher in a one-day event. Parents buy books for their kids and the school keeps half the money.

In that situation there were parents, kids, babies in strollers, teachers, and a lot of cash. There was also an armed guard standing discretely in the corner in case something were to go awry. In that environment you felt completely safe.

It explains why people build societies and strive to eliminate risk. The contrast between the two worlds is remarkable.