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November 03, 2023 11:00 AM UTC

It's Long Past Time to Ban Body Armor

  • 11 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:

From the app formerly known as Twitter

—–

[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]

For about $1,000, you can look like this.

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

Dangerous cosplay

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.

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

    1. You can refer to it as whatever you want, but it won’t change what it was designed for, which is to provide the citizens with the right to protect themselves and to have the ability to resist a tyrannical government, such as the ones who are trying to ban something that is purely defensive in order to make you more vulnerable to being shot. If wearing concealable body armor is considered “soldier cosplay”, then so be it.

  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?

      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. 

  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)

  6. “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.”

    Once I read this, I immediately learned that whoever wrote this is fabricating information to support their narrative and doesn’t know what they’re talking about. While the data does show that there is an increasing number of mass shooters who wear body armor, the overall number who do is still statistically insignificant and definitely nowhere near “the majority” like this author is attempting to claim. 

    “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.”

    This shows that they are very uneducated on how body armor actually works. Wearing body armor doesn’t make you invincible. Not only does it only protect the chest area and upper back, but body armor is not designed to stop any and all bullets. There are different levels designed to stop specific bullets. For example, soft body armor will ONLY stop handguns and shotguns, but rifle rounds will slice right through with no problem. Furthermore, body armor stops the bullet, but it doesn’t stop the energy. So even if your armor stops the bullet, you’ll definitely still feel the impact and probably even get knocked off your feet. But certainly wearing body armor does NOT make you a “walking tank”. 

    “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.”

    This is just ridiculous. This is like saying if you’re afraid of being shot when you leave your house, then you should never leave your house. It’s no solution. Maybe, for whatever reason, someone has to go somewhere “in which wearing body armor seems like a good idea”. While it is more ideal to just avoid areas of potential danger, that is not always possible, and it would be nice to have some form of protection, such as body armor, when you need to go to such a place. 

    “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?”

    What are they even trying to say here? It’s just a bunch of nonsense. The only people who wear visible body armor are the police, military, and other first responders. The average citizen is not going to go out in public wearing visible body armor. They are going to wear something discreet so that nobody knows they’re wearing it, which is the whole point. No civilian “wants” to visibly wear body armor as a form of intimidation. That’s just ridiculous.

    And they’re asking “Are we really debating allowing mass shooters to purchase and own body armor just so gun enthusiasts can do a better job of cosplaying?”  So let me get this straight. You’re implying that someone who is intending to commit the illegal act of murder will not purchase and own body armor because that would be illegal, and therefore we must ban it? And deprive the millions of law abiding citizens who use body armor for their own personal defense because of the minority of criminals who use it for unlawful purposes. If we start banning things because a criminal used them, we’d be going back to the stone age real quick.

    “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 just see what the U.S. Supreme Court has had to say about that, because it just so happens to be the case that they already provided us with a definition of “arms” at the time of the founding in their ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller :

    • 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).

    So as we can see from the plain text of the nation’s highest court, the Second Amendment absolutely DOES include the right to purchase body armor, since it’s literally in the definition of “arms”. And they are claiming that body armor did not even exist when the constitution was drafted. That is not true at all. Body armor absolutely did exist at that time (especially since it was literally in the definition of “arms” during that time, as the Supreme Court has pointed out). Furthermore, historical research has indicated that body armor was in use for centuries prior to the founding era and ratification of the constitution. And even if we were to assume that body armor did not exist during the founding era, the Supreme Court’s ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller also states (and reaffirmed in Caetano v. Massachusetts) 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” So even if body armor did not exist, it would still be protected.

    They’re also claiming that “Courts have ruled that the 2nd Amendment also doesn’t guarantee the right to carry around a large knife”. Okay good to know, but we’re talking about body armor here, not large knives. 

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

    Yes they did, and that law is now being challenged in federal court, and will inevitably get struck down since a ban on body armor is blatantly unconstitutional under the SCOTUS Heller decision, and also unconstitutional under Bruen, because no history and tradition exists to justify a law that completely outlaws body armor to civilians (recall that the Bruen decision requires that firearm regulations must be consistent with a history and tradition of similar laws in order to be considered constitutional). Furthermore, because these proposed body armor bans (including the one signed into law in NY) include exemptions for people in favored professions, this could possibly also be in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

    I don’t know who wrote this bunch of nonsense, but they really went to great lengths to say stuff that are flat out not true and even saying things that are in direct conflict with landmark Supreme Court rulings, which fortunately supersede the personal beliefs of people who are clearly uneducated and don’t know what they’re talking about. This person is clearly very uneducated on how body armor works and it’s common use for lawful purposes, yet they have such a strong opinion that it must be banned because some criminals have used it. Criminals have used cars, too, so perhaps it’s time to ban cars.

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