500 people in 100 seconds

Tonight's creative animation, from Israel - 500 people holding more than 1,500 different photos, creating a video animation:

Gun laws around the world

From a 1997 article by attorney Don Kates, reprinted at NRA-ILA, on gun laws in Europe and elsewhere:

Americans have been gravely misled about foreign gun ownership and the severity and effectiveness of foreign gun bans. It simply is not true to state that "the U.S. has more gun availability and far less restriction than any other modern industrial nation."

That honor goes to Israel where, nevertheless, murder "rates are much lower than in the United States despite ... [Israel`s] greater availability of guns to law-abiding civilians," writes Israeli judge Abraham Tennenbaum (formerly an official with the Israeli National Police and then a professor of criminology). ...

Article here, with some charts and tables.

Stabbing attempt thwarted due to alert park ranger

From the Holy Land, comes this reminder about the importance of good situational awareness:

As Nature and National Parks Protection Authority ranger Pini Birenbaum was making his rounds near the Mount of Olives on Sunday morning, it was his alertness and quick thinking, he said, that saved his life.

Birenbaum, who patrols various Nature and Parks Authority sites throughout Jerusalem as part of his job, was making his way through the Jerusalem Trail in the Yad Avshalom neighborhood on Sunday, when a young man approached him and attempted to stab him with a knife.

"I saw him coming towards me and at first I didn't think anything of it," Birenbaum told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday afternoon. "But as he got closer, I could see that he was hiding something in his right hand - it looked to me like some kind of a tool or even a knife."

Birenbaum's suspicions were confirmed moments later, when the man, a 20-year-old Arab whose identity had not been released by press time, lunged at him with a large blade. Birenbaum was able to dodge the initial strike and pull out his service weapon - a handgun - subduing his attacker until police and border patrol officers arrived on the scene. The close call, however, was not lost on the ranger.

"He walked right up to me and tried to stab me in the abdomen," Birenbaum said. "It all happened so fast. If I hadn't been paying attention, or if I had acted more slowly, God forbid, you might not be interviewing me right now." [emphasis added]

Article here. It's much easier to defend against an attack you see coming, than against one you don't. Once again, my keen insight into the blindingly obvious is on display for all to see. :-) Stay alert, and trust your instincts.