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The Vitality of Ceramic Armor for First Responders

History: ￼

The argument is being made why do police officers look like soldiers and not the image of Andy and Barney from the Andy Griffith Show? There are a few main factors for this trend: The first, and top reasoning being that many firearms which are popular today weren't commercially available sixty years ago. The first AR15 style rifle was invented (and named after) the manufacture of it. Arma Lite, Inc in the 1950's. Many people today mislabel the term "AR" to "Assault Rifle" and that is simply incorrect. Arma Lite Rifle, or AR is where the name originated from. Arma Lite invented the rifle for the US Military with the goal of creating a rifle that would be easy to use and maintain by soldiers in the field, easy to mass produce, and deadly in combat. It was the American response to the increasingly popular Soviet AK-47 that the Russian troops were issued. Arma Lite had a hard time convincing the Pentagon the rifle was the future and out of frustration, they sold the rights to Colt in 1959. Taking the new design and seeing the benefits from it, Colt was able to successfully convince the American government to purchase the rifle for the military in 1963. The weapon quickly made its global debut in Vietnam as an M-16 or M-16A1 where it quickly made many American troops frustrated. The rifle was sold to the military under the impression it was a low maintenance weapon - just like it's AK-47 counterpart. But this was not the case. Considering the weapon is gas operated and not piston driven, it requires maintenance to properly function. Soon many American troops quickly realized that the weapon jammed repeatedly and was unreliable. Despite the early negativity in Vietnam, Colt was able to manufacture a semi-automatic version of the rifle and began selling it to law enforcement and the general public with tremendous success under the name AR-15. The design was a huge hit commercially and in the 1970's when Colt's Patents expired, every manufacturer quickly began producing their own models. For the next 40 years the AR-15 rifle was mass produced and sold to the American public and wasn't used in a mass shooting until 2007 in Crandon, Wisconsin. Sadly since 2007 many public shootings have used AR-15's which has sparked the fierce debate on whether the popular firearm should be banned from civilian use altogether.

The Transition:

Over that 40-year timespan American law enforcement rarely purchased or used armor. Many larger police departments across the country only had armor for emergency situations. Everyday patrol officers in the 1980's and even though the 1990's didn't wear armor on a daily basis. So, what changed? With the rise of crime, population growth, and federal changing of how police officers do their jobs. Prior to 1968 police couldn't legally stop and frisk without probable cause. However, in Terry v. Ohio, the US Supreme Court ruled that police officers could stop and frisk "if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person "may be armed and presently dangerous." Another change in law enforcement was the US Supreme Court ruling in 1985 with Tennessee v. Garner. This landmark case gave law enforcement the power to use deadly force "if the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others" Changing how police interact with the community, and the fact of rising crime in the 1990's and into the 21st Century, caused a transition to the "friendly officer of Andy Griffith" to the more militaristic style of policing we see today. Police switched to semi-automatic pistols in the 1990's due to the large increase in crime and ditched the 6 shot revolvers that had been in use since the days of Wyatt Earp in the Wild West. If common citizens have modern weapons and armor, so will law enforcement. It's a natural evolution. Taking away AR style weapons and armor from citizens will in fact create a military police state, which absolutely nobody in America wants on both sides of the political aisle. Police by definition are meant to serve and protect. Not enforce and subject. Police are a servant of the people, not the enforcer of the States' wishes. Keeping average American citizens armed helps maintain the power to the people. A people disarmed can and will be easily controlled by the State, and with no good outcome. Simply look at any dictatorship in world history. Disarming citizens won't stop mass killings either. Criminals will use any tool necessary to commit their heinous acts of violence. Not one AR-15 was used in the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh. On September 11th, 2001, not a single AR-15 was used by terrorists, and thousands of Americans perished. Approximately 8 million AR-15 style rifles are currently in the hands of American citizens. 13 of those rifles have been used in mass shootings since 2012, or 0.0001% of the total in circulation. America doesn't have a gun problem. America has a mental health problem disguised as a gun problem. Additionally, "Defunding the police" rhetoric and many soft on crime policies that have been sweeping the country will only result in more skyrocketing crime and people will blame the tools used (guns) instead of the failed policies that brought us here.

Armor:

With the rising crime and ever-changing landscape of how the country is handling its criminals, one tool that is neither a firearm nor ammunition comes to light so our first responders can return home to their families: Armor. Looking back through the millennia armor has been industrialized for standing armies. The Roman Empire and her Legions standardized armor and mass produced it. One of the contributing factors of the Legions wide scale success over the known world. Armies around the world stopped using armor with the invention of firearms, largely due to the fact materials at the time were largely ineffective against it. Same reason why medieval style castles stopped being constructed when cannons were invented. From the American Revolutionary War to the Vietnam conflict armor was widely unused. During the Civil War the use of iron chest plates was considered cowardly by both Union and Confederate troops and therefore widely unused. It wasn't until the early 1990's when both the US Military and law enforcement began taking a second look at different armor applications for better protection. Ceradyne, Inc. was the first pioneer of hard armor applications for the US Military in the 1990's. At the time the company was manufacturing ceramic armor for helicopter seats, giving pilots protection from ground fire; a problem since the Vietnam days when enemy combatants would specifically target them.

At the time retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and Vietnam combat veteran Marc King, who was also serving as Ceradyne company President, suggested using the same materials for helicopter pilots and use them as chest plates for average troops. The result was the creation of the first-generation SAPI (Small Arm Protective Insert) hard armor plate. Over time these plates would be transformed into ESAPI (Enhanced Small Arms Protective Inserts) that are still widely used today. The result was the birth of a multi-billion-dollar market. As with most products (including the AR-15's mentioned earlier in the article) whatever the US Military uses generally spills over into Americas law enforcement and common citizens. Why is this? The most common reason is that a large number of veterans are now law enforcement officers. A former active-duty Soldier will take their training and equipment and use them in the civilian workforce. The old "flak jackets" of WWII and Vietnam which were designed to prevent injury from fragmentation were transitioned into vests which stopped small arms fire. This was made possible with the DuPont invention of Kevlar. Soon Americas law enforcement was using armored vests for everyday usage. Since 1990 over 3,000 police officers' lives have been saved from the usage of armor.

Soft armor vests began to slowly pick up popularity with law enforcement in the late 1970's with the widely available materials needed to mass produce. Seeing the vitality and easy access, many federal and state law enforcement agencies began making it mandatory to wear while the officer was on duty. Important to note soft armor is flexible material that is generally made of Kevlar type materials or a hybrid of ultra-high weight molecular weight polyethylene's. Soft armor can only defeat handgun munitions and cannot stop rifle munitions. Hard armor applications are made of a ceramic and ultra-high weight molecular weight polyethylene and are specifically manufactured to defeat rifle munitions. With the rise of crime and mass shootings, more and more law enforcement personnel are using hard armor as an everyday part of the job. The usage of hard armor offers superior protection against the most common rifle threats law enforcement officer's encounter.

Differences in the armor applications: ￼

Most people fail to realize the differences between armor the Department of Defense (DoD) uses and the armor that is most common with law enforcement officers and average citizens. Armor used by the DoD is a controlled item; meaning the drawings (armor schematics) are not available for civilian usage, and only available to US troops. Most DoD armor applications use the most expensive materials in the market today, ensuring the weight to ballistic integrity ratio are maximized. These applications are too expensive for civilians' usage and therefore rarely acquired. The National Institute of Justice (managed by the Department of Justice) regulates how armor manufactures can produce armor for civilian and law enforcement personnel through a certification program. Participation in the program isn't mandatory, but strongly recommended for companies producing armor in the United States.

References:

1) National Public Radio. National Security. A Brief History of the AR-15. February 28th, 2018. Greg Myre. A Brief History Of The AR-15 : NPR

2) National Use of Force Collection. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Use-of-Force — FBI

3) Next City.org To Stop Fatal Police Shootings Cities Should Look to the 1980's. July 9th, 2018. Rachael Dovey. To Stop Fatal Police Shootings, Cities Should Look to the 1980s (nextcity.org)

4) Justia. US Supreme Court. Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985) Tennessee v. Garner :: 471 U.S. 1 (1985) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center

5) Justia. US Supreme Court. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) Terry v. Ohio :: 392 U.S. 1 (1968) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center

6) USA Today. Fact check: AR-15 style rifles used in 11 mass shootings since 2012. April 21st, 2021, Bayliss Wagner. Fact check: Post missing context about AR-15 rifles and mass shootings (usatoday.com)