It's Long Past Time to Ban Body Armor

13 thoughts on “It’s Long Past Time to Ban Body Armor”

1. I think paranoia and conspiracy theory have parts to play beyond just cosplay.

   Also: "the body armor community"?

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   1. Yeah, my thought exactly.🙄 That's how you know it's cosplay.

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2. Sheesh. Can we just refer to the 2nd Amendment as the "Right to Soldier Cosplay" Amendment from here on out?

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   1. Yes, I’m sure that the founding fathers, who have just won a revolutionary war against a tyrannical government and allowed for the birth of the United States, created the 2nd Amendment for the primary purpose of allowing the people the right to “soldier cosplay.” Definitely had nothing to do with resisting a tyrannical government or for self defense. It was for us citizens to be able to cosplay as soldiers. So yes, you can absolutely refer to it as that. /s

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3. How has the MAGA-verse not tried to link someone named Diego Barajas Medina to the Dems efforts to prevent F.D.F.Q.'s construction of his wall?

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4. I always thought bulletproof backpacks like these were a good idea…

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   1. on kids so that it's harder to shoot them in the back. Do you even care whether they get shot because FREEDOM.

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      1. Why is it such a terrible thing for kids to have bulletproof backpacks? The only downside about them is that they're expensive. Is it unfortunate that parents even have to consider buying their children these backpacks because of school shootings? Absolutely, yes. But in the unfortunate reality of school shootings, it at least serves as a very passive means to protect your children if God forbid a shooting occurs in their school. And like I mentioned, their only downside is their price. But we have people who are uneducated and simply associate body armor with gun violence, and therefore perceive it as a bad thing, even though it's a purely defensive item designed to protect lives. 

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5. Ehhh….. I’m going with the body armor ban is dumb because, in our ass-backward country, I have to advocate for kids to be able to have a level of protection, such as ballistic armor backpacks, from the next mass shooting (I can’t believe I even have to put out this position).

   A body armor ban is treating a symptom rather than the disease and continues us down this insane path that we’re already on.

   FWIW, the asshat Rhoads (it pains me to say this) is correct as Pols’ image is of riot armor (useful against blunt force trauma and some pointy objects) and he’s talking about ballistic armor (meant to resist a bullet impact)

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6. oh….you mean "average citizens" like these?

   

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7. "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."

   I find it interesting how we consider law-abiding citizens to be potential mass shooters UNLESS they are a government employee and/or wear a badge. Apparently, the latter means that it's guaranteed that you're a good guy and can be trusted with assault rifles and body armor while other law-abiding citizens cannot be.

   “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.”

   Anyone who actually takes a look at the data being presented by the writer will know that this is blatantly false. It is NOT the “majority” (i.e. > 50%) of mass shooters who are wearing body armor. The data provided by The Violence Project shows that 21 mass shooters over the last 40 years have worn body armor, with the majority of these cases occurring in the last decade. There were over 600 mass shootings in the last 4 years. If we assume that all those 600 occurred last year alone, and assume that all 21 of those shooters who wore body armor were among those 600, that would still only be about 3.50% of mass shooters (meaning that the percentage is even lower in actuality), way lower than the > 50% that the writer is attempting to persuade us into believing.

    

   “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.”

   The fact that the writer is referring to people who wear body armor as “walking tanks” is evidence that they are very uneducated on how body armor works. While body armor is a defensive item designed to save your life when getting shot at, it absolutely does NOT make you invincible. There are different types of body armor designed to protect against different threats. In essence, there is soft armor (usually kevlar) designed for handgun and shotgun rounds, but NOT rifle rounds (which will go straight through soft armor), and there is hard armor (usually steel or ceramic) designed for rifle rounds in addition to handgun and shotgun rounds. However, even if the armor is successful in stopping the bullet, the energy impact could still be enough to cause a bruise, crack some ribs, or even knock you off your feet, depending on the force of the bullet (i.e. how much energy it had) and the protection level and quality of your armor.

   The reason the buffalo shooter was completely unaffected by the security guard’s effort to stop him was because he was wearing rifle armor, and the security guard shot him with a low powered handgun. The amount of energy the bullet had was too little to cause any forceful impact (that the wearer would feel) on an armor plate designed to protect against high powered rifles. Had he been shot with a rifle, or a higher powered handgun, I would bet that the outcome would have been very different.

    

   “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.”

   Here the writer is essentially suggesting that if you are afraid of being shot when leaving your house, then you should either never leave your house or move somewhere else, simple as that (in their eyes). Of course, that is absolutely absurd and not realistic. People may have to go into dangerous places for whatever reason, and while it is most ideal to avoid dangerous neighborhoods, that is not always possible, especially in cities where gun violence is very prevalent. And it’s certainly not always feasible to just move 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?”

   The only people who wear visible body armor in public are people who are law enforcement, security, military, EMS, etc. No ordinary, law-abiding civilian is going to go in public wearing visible body armor. They are going to wear something that is discreet and concealed (i.e. under their clothing). In fact, body armor manufacturers nowadays design and sell body armor in the form of standard jackets and T-shirts. So the only people whom you have to worry about wearing visible body armor in public — “dress[ing] up like G.I. Joe” — as “a fashion accessory intended to intimidate” and “[wanting] you to see that they are prepared for some imaginary battle” are those in the aforementioned professions. But of course, because they are government employees and/or wear a badge, then it’s guaranteed that they’re the good guys, so no need to worry /s.

   “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.”

    

   If a hunter is choosing to wear body armor, it is most likely for their safety against other nearby hunters who may be reckless with their firearms. While it is perhaps debatable that they should probably consider an alternative location to hunt if they’re nearby other hunters who can’t properly handle firearms, this nonetheless doesn’t dismiss the fact that there’s nothing wrong with them wearing body armor if they so choose.

   “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.”

   Oh, is that so? Well, let’s analyze this more carefully. The Second Amendment says “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The key word here is “Arms,” and so the question is, is body armor an “Arms”? Well, fortunately for us, we don’t have to speculate the answer, because the Supreme Court of the United States has already provided us with the founding era definition of “arms” in their landmark ruling District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), and all we have to do is determine whether body armor falls within that definition:

   Before addressing the verbs “keep” and “bear,” we interpret their object: “Arms.” The 18th-century meaning is no different from the meaning today. The 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defined “arms” as “weapons of offence, or armour of defence.” 1 Dictionary of the English Language 107 (4th ed.) (hereinafter Johnson). Timothy Cunningham’s important 1771 legal dictionary defined “arms” as “any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.” 1 A New and Complete Law Dictionary (1771); see also N. Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) (reprinted 1989) (hereinafter Webster) (similar).

   [emphasis added]

   As we can see from the text of the Second Amendment and from the text of the Heller opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court, it is blatantly and undoubtedly clear that the Second Amendment absolutely DOES include the right to purchase body armor.

   Furthermore, they assert that body armor was “not a thing that even existed when the Constitution was drafted.” This is not true. While modern-day body armor is a more recent invention (invented by a pizza delivery guy believe it or not), historical research has indicated that body armor in general has been in existence for centuries even prior to the ratification of the Constitution. And the fact that “armour of defence” is literally in the definition of “Arms” is in itself evidence that body armor in some form absolutely did exist at that time. 

   Lastly, by (falsely) claiming that body armor was “not a thing that even existed when the Constitution was drafted,” they are essentially implying that because body armor did not exist at that time, it therefore isn’t constitutionally protected. This is directly contrary to Supreme Court precedent. As they point out in Heller, “[s]ome have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications  . . .  and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search,” they affirm that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” This was also reaffirmed in Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016) and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen (2022).   

    

   The writer also goes on a tangent and claims that “Courts have ruled that the 2nd Amendment also doesn’t guarantee the right to carry around a large knife.” Okay, good to know (assuming this is even truthful), but we’re talking about body armor, not large knives. Two totally different things.

   “New York enacted a ban on bulletproof vests following the Buffalo mass shooting.”

   Yes they did, and that law is now rightfully being challenged in federal court, and while there are no guarantees, I believe that it is inevitable that this law will get struck down since such a law is blatantly unconstitutional in accordance with the text of the 2nd Amendment and with Supreme Court precedent, which demands (per Bruen) that as long as the text of the 2nd Amendment covers a certain conduct, then it is presumptively protected, and the government must demonstrate a historical tradition in the nation’s history of banning/regulating that conduct, and if no such tradition exists, then the regulation must be deemed unconstitutional. NY’s law is the first of its kind to exist in the nation’s history, body armor is in common use for lawful purposes, and the only accepted tradition in the nation’s history is that of regulating/banning “arms” that are both dangerous and unusual, and even proving just one of those to be truthful for body armor is virtually impossible, let alone both. Furthermore, because NY’s law, and similar laws being introduced in other states and at the federal level, include exemptions for people in so-called “eligible professions,” there is a possibility that it also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

   And of course, the writer ends with more false information: “Law enforcement personnel are already at a disadvantage because of how easy it is in this country to purchase assault rifles”

   Assault rifles, also referred to as machine guns, are rifles that fire automatically (i.e. continuously fire with a single pull of the trigger). Such firearms, although legal, are far from easy to purchase. They are very heavily regulated and extremely expensive. What the writer is probably referring to are semi-automatic rifles (i.e. rifles that fire a single shot with a single pull of the trigger). However, the fact that they are using incorrect terminology demonstrates that they are just as uneducated on firearm terminology as they are on body armor, and that their arguments are driven purely by emotions rather than actual facts. Furthermore, they refer to such firearms as “weapons of war manufactured for the purpose of shooting other human beings.” Regardless of the fact that a “weapon[ ] of war” is still yet to be objectively defined by anyone and is nothing more than a media-invented term intended to scare people, the writer is somewhat implying that a rifle is the only type of weapon that is manufactured with the intention of killing other human beings, while a handgun or shotgun is not, which makes no logical sense.

   So in conclusion, the writer wrote what is essentially an essay filled with false information along with blatant evidence that they are very uneducated on how body armor works. They attempt to make an emotional argument to persuade the reader into believing what they say, perhaps with the hope that nobody will think to fact check them, or that nobody who is actually knowledgeable on this topic will happen to come across their argument and critique it. What they say is not only directly contrary to reality, but also directly contrary to Supreme Court precedent, which fortunately takes precedence over the arguments of those, such as this writer, who are emotionally driven and uneducated on the facts.

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