Award-winning knife designer Allen Elishewitz has lived in the Far East and has practiced martial arts over the past 30 years. This training, along with his experience as a Recon Marine, gave Allen the perfect background to design these defensive writing instruments, CRKT Tao Pens. If the user is threatened or attacked, the pens can be used at three levels of defensive force, depending on the type of threat. "At the lowest level of engagement, the impact crown on the cap can be used to strike the assailant on the head or hands by raking or thrusting. "At the second level, the more pointed butt of the pen may be used to thrust or provide a disabling pressure point behind the ears, at the armpit or throat. "At the third level, if the attack persists, the pen point may be thrust for penetration in soft tissues of the throat, chest or abdomen with potentially lethal results if the assailant does not break off the attack." The pens are made of 6061 aluminum, precision-machined and hard anodized. The heavy cap is threaded so that it will not pull off in use, and castellated for greater impact. The flutes and grooves on the pen, combined with the pewter-toned stainless steel pocket clip, provide a secure grip. Four color schemes are available: no reflective olive drab and tactical black, plus brown with bright grooves and black with bright grooves. All Tao models are functional writing instruments which use the Fisher Space Pen ball point cartridge, a pressurized design developed for NASA. It has a tungsten carbide ball point and thixotropic ink which will write in freezing cold, boiling heat, underwater and at any angle-even upside down.