Previously I talked about the Omni Sheath, a product that lets you turn any suitably sized, pointy tool into a self-defense tool with a carry sheath. Since that time, Delta2Alpha briefly offered a kit that had length of shock cord, a tubing sheath (which you can fold over and tie off with string or cord to form a pocket hook), and a small Phillips-head screwdriver. I don’t believe that package is available now (and I’m not sure how official an offering it might have been at the time), but that’s not the point; you can get such screwdrivers anywhere. The point is that you’re probably approaching screwdrivers wrong when it comes to EDC.
I say this against a landscape that continues to see random tools like tiny pliers become popular for EDC, seemingly for little reason. Screwdrivers as a cheap, plausibly deniable self-defense school have been discussed for a while. But I was guilty of making a mistake that the folks at Delta2Alpha pointed out to me — a mistake you might have made, too:
I was going “too large.”
You don’t want a huge flat-head screwdriver for expedient self-defense. Rather, you want one with a very small Phillips-head. This makes it more like a needle than a harpoon, and for realistic self-defense, that makes it a more effective tool.
Don’t believe me? Do some testing on stacked-cardboard media. The smaller Phillips-head penetrates deeper and much more easily than the big flat-head. Yes, you can muscle the large flat-head through, and I certainly wouldn’t discount the danger represented by someone wielding such a tool. That said, you still want to go smaller, not larger, if you choose to equip yourself with something “hobo-tactical” of this type.