Experiences like having a car broken into or stolen, having your house burgled, witnessing violent behavior in the street or in a pub can all make you realise just how much of your security relies of other people’s choices.

Some incidents are so serious that you don’t have to experience or witness them first-hand to feel unnerved.

Wagga this month has seen several incidents that could undermine faith in public order.

Robberies where people were threatened with weapons, including firearms, and brazen targeting of people working alone and late at night.

These workers are there to provide 24-hour convenience to those who need a ride home, or petrol or basic groceries at all hours of the night.

Unfortunately, this has left them more vulnerable to other kinds of night owls: the kind with malice on their minds.

Other incidents go further still, leaving a whole nation felling distressed even though the terrible acts took place hundreds of kilometres away.

Melbourne was already haunted by the deaths of two young women, Jill Meagher and Eurydice Dixon, who were violently and shockingly attacked while simply making their way home.

Now it appears something similar might have happened again.

Victoria Police believe a “random and opportunistic” killer attacked 21-year-old Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe after she stepped off a tram on Wednesday night in Melbourne’s north.

Such a brutal and senseless event has the power to unsettle many people.

Writer Robert E. Howard is famous for the quote: “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance.”

Hopefully, Mr Howard was immensely mistaken when he wrote that line in 1935.

Trust is the foundation of an open society and hopefully we can maintain it.