November 03, 2023 11:00 AM UTC

It's Long Past Time to Ban Body Armor

• 7 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE (FRIDAY): The executive director of the “no compromise” gun fetish rights group Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO) took issue with the cost of body armor that we found online. If there is a point to this argument from Taylor Rhodes, we must have missed it:

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[mantra-pullquote align=”right” textalign=”left” width=”60%”]“We had the potential for something heinous and gruesome to happen in this community and we were fortunate that it did not occur.”

— Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario[/mantra-pullquote]

We didn’t want to miss an important story from The Denver Post on Monday about a scary scene in Glenwood Springs that fortunately didn’t end with the carnage that one man was prepared to inflict:

Garfield County law enforcement officials on Monday described an averted disaster after the body of a 20-year-old man was found alongside guns, ammunition and bombs in a bathroom at the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park over the weekend.

Maintenance crews discovered the man’s body in a women’s bathroom Saturday morning while getting ready to open the park, Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario said during a virtual news conference.

The Garfield County Coroner’s Office on Monday identified the man as Diego Barajas Medina, of Carbondale, and confirmed his manner of death was suicide, caused by a single gunshot wound to the head…

…Medina was dressed in black tactical clothing and had a rifle, pistol, ammunition, pipe bombs and fake grenades with him, Vallario said. [Pols emphasis]

It appears from the reporting that Diego Barajas Medina was kitted up and prepared for battle — again, at an amusement park — and that the only reason innocent people weren’t killed or injured was because he decided to take his own life first.

We can all be thankful that a greater tragedy was avoided, but we should still be concerned about how prepared Medina was for a violent encounter with law enforcement officials. There is one reason, and one reason only, why Medina was dressed in black tactical clothing and body armor: He was prepared for a violent gun battle and wanted to protect himself from an action that he was apparently planning to initiate.

And it happens all the time.

The man who killed 26 people and wounded 20 others in 2017 at a Baptist Church in Southerland, Texas was wearing black body armor and a skull mask. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, which may have been the only way to stop him.

In May 2022, a white man in Buffalo killed 10 people and injured three others in a racially-motivated shooting targeting a Black community. As NPR reported later:

When an 18-year-old man stepped into a Buffalo grocery store…with an AR-15-style rifle, the store’s security guard tried to stop the shooting by firing his own weapon back at the shooter.

But the security guard’s fire was stopped by the shooter’s body armor, authorities say. Then, the shooter shot and killed the guard. 

In this case, a “good guy with a gun” had no chance against a bad guy with a gun and body armor. The Buffalo shooter, like many others before and since, was wearing body armor as protection FROM police and law enforcement officers. Why do we allow this?

There is a federal restriction on purchasing body armor for people convicted of a violent crime in the United States, but that’s hardly a solution to this problem. Gun enthusiasts love to say that we shouldn’t restrict the rights of “law-abiding citizens” to purchase assault rifles, for example, but mass shootings are often committed by people who were not originally believed to be violent criminals. The same is true of body armor.

As NPR reported in 2022:

Body armor is expensive, and it’s rarely used by typical criminals, says Aaron Westrick, a body armor expert and criminal justice professor at Lake Superior State University

But he says he sees body armor used more often by ideologically inspired shooters and shooters that meticulously plan their attacks, as the Buffalo suspect allegedly did.

The number of mass shooters who wore body armor has trended upwards in recent years, according to data collected by The Violence Project, a nonpartisan group that researches gun violence. [Pols emphasis]

That data also shows that the majority of mass shooters in the last decade have been committed by assailants wearing body armor. That includes the 2012 movie theater shooting in Aurora and the 2021 shooting at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder.

Local governments are now spending significant amounts of money in order to better protect first responders from shooters who are like walking tanks. One county in North Carolina recently spent $925,000 to purchase body armor for firefighters and paramedics so that they could be better protected when responding to a shooting.

Body Armor and Armed Bears

Gun groups often talk about body armor as a means of protection, but from whom or what? If you’re planning on going somewhere in which wearing body armor seems like a good idea…maybe you should go somewhere else. 

The vast majority of people who wear visible body armor in public – usually the “militia” types who dress up like G.I. Joe – are often also carrying at least one firearm. For these folks, body armor is a fashion accessory intended to intimidate; they could wear a bulletproof vest discreetly underneath a shirt and jacket, but they WANT you to see that they are prepared for some imaginary battle. Are we really debating allowing mass shooters to purchase and own body armor just so gun enthusiasts can do a better job of cosplaying?

Other arguments in favor of body armor are generally pretty thin. Hunters will sometimes claim that it is necessary for protection – presumably from other hunters rather than to guard against animals that may have developed opposable thumbs. Again, if you are hunting in some place where body armor seems necessary…maybe you should go somewhere else. If animals are wielding guns, then we have a different problem. 

Other arguments are similar to this nonsense from a company called “Spartan Armor Systems”:

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution states that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This includes the right to purchase body armor, as it is a form of self-defense and protection. Restricting the ability of average citizens to purchase body armor would be a violation of their Second Amendment rights.

That’s silly. The Second Amendment absolutely does NOT include the right to purchase body armor, which was not a thing that even existed when the Constitution was drafted. Courts have ruled that the 2nd Amendment also doesn’t guarantee the right to carry around a large knife. 

This complaint about body armor legislation in California is particularly specious:

The bill would have a significant impact on the body armor community, as it would greatly restrict the ability of average citizens to purchase body armor. This would disproportionately affect law-abiding citizens who use body armor for lawful purposes such as hunting, outdoor activities, and personal protection.

Essentially this argument is that body armor should be legal to buy because there are companies in the United States that make money from the manufacture and sale of bulletproof equipment. There are also plenty of people in this country who make money off of the sale of dangerous drugs such as heroin; should that also be legal?

Colorado Should Step Up Next

New York enacted a ban on bulletproof vests following the Buffalo mass shooting. Legislation to ban or restrict the sale or purchase of body armor was introduced this year in both California and Illinois. 

As The Sacramento Bee reported in January: 

Most Californians would be banned from purchasing or taking possession of body armor, such as a bullet-proof vest, under a bill now being considered by state lawmakers. 

Assembly Bill 92, introduced by Assemblyman Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, comes as a response to many high-profile mass shootings where the shooter wore body armor. That includes the 2015 massacre in San Bernardino, where two people wearing tactical gear killed 14 people at a holiday gathering…

…“Simply put, the widespread availability of military-grade body armor helps mass shooters and criminals kill more people,” Assemblyman Damon Connolly said in a statement. “It is clear that the sale of body armor has empowered violent criminals, including mass shooters, to harm, kill, and prolong their rampages.

California’s effort ended up being watered down significantly, but was a step in the right direction. Similar legislation in Illinois seems to have gotten bogged down for the moment.

Colorado lawmakers should pick up the baton in January. Legislation could potentially include an option for people to apply for a license to purchase a bulletproof vest under special circumstances, but that’s about the limit to what makes sense as an exception. 

Law enforcement personnel are already at a disadvantage because of how easy it is in this country to purchase assault rifles — weapons of war manufactured for the purpose of shooting other human beings — along with virtually unlimited amounts of ammunition. Shooters with body armor can kill more innocent people because it is so much more difficult for law enforcement officials to stop them. 

Thankfully, we’ll never know how much carnage the man in Glenwood Springs might have caused before someone could stop his attack. But we can’t rely on hope and luck to prevent the next massacre. 

Body armor is completely unnecessary and should be outlawed nationwide. Until then, Colorado lawmakers should take the lead.