In the past, laminated glass was usually installed in the windshield, with side and rear windows being tempered only.
The difference is that tempered glass is per-stressed so that when it cracks, it shatters into many tiny and dull pieces. Laminated is the same thing, but with layers of plastic sandwiched with layers of tempered glass. Laminated glass will still shatter, but will be held together by the plastic layers.
In an emergency, small improvised, or purpose built tools meant to shatter tempered glass will be useless if the glass is laminated.
Those pieces are not dull. They’re just not jagged and shaped like knives like normal glass. I accidentally broke the rear window on my truck and, thinking it was dull like you described, started to pick it up with my hands. Big mistake.
You just unlocked a very unpleasant memory of picking up small glass pieces with my hand. Like you said, big mistake and the worst was that I didn’t notice it was cutting at first…
One time I was climbing a rock in a park in Illinois, and reached up into a pile of finely-ground glass.
I managed to pick all but one little piece out of my fingers. That one piece was so far in I couldn’t get it.
Later on, I couldn’t find it. So I figured it had come out.
But a few weeks later my palm itched and that fucking piece of glass poked its way out of my palm.
AHHHHHHHH FUCK
Yeah, they’re absolutely sharp. But since they’re not point, you’ll end with a hundred tiny cuts, instead of a giant shard stabbing through your torso…
Yeah, the part where it separated from the rest of the glass isn’t usually stabby or cutty; but the edges along the corners of the piece sure as hell are! I learned this the hard way…