How Wearing Body Armor Saves Lives

Note: this is a guest post. Not related to tanks.

When you hear the words body armor, what words come to mind? Hopefully, you’re thinking about words like police officers, safety, and protection. Body armor can save lives. It can protect those in law enforcement and the military. In this article, we will discuss protective body armor and the benefits of body armor.

Protective Body Armor

Protective body armor has been used for centuries. It was originally used to protect soldiers. However, as knife and gun crime around the world increased, body armor has been used by law enforcement and security guards. Sea piracy has actually led to the need for protective vests for crew members.

There are different designs of stab and bulletproof vests. The vests are either covert or overt. A covert bulletproof vest is worn under your clothing, while overt vests are worn over the top of your clothes. Covert protective armor vests tend to be thinner than an overt vests and lighter in color. They are designed to be hidden under your clothes. Overt protective armor vests are made of hard, rugged materials. Since they are meant to be worn over your clothes they often have pockets or straps that can be used by the wearer. These bullet and stabproof vests are often customized for different uses such as military or law enforcement personnel.

Protective body armor is used against three types of threats. These include bullets, stabs, and spikes. Some vests provide protection from just bullets or stabbing, while other vests protect from both. There is also body armor made to protect against all stab, bullet, and spike threats. Protective body armor will be clearly labeled as to what it protects against.

Bulletproof vests are designed to stop bullets from penetrating and causing harm to the wearer. Essentially, the vest catches the bullets and prevents them from traveling any further. Bulletproof vests come in several protection levels. These vests protect against medium-energy handgun rounds. If you need protection from rifle rounds, more hard, rigid protective body armor is needed. Hard armor is generally worn in front of bulletproof panels. Hard protective body armor is bulky and used for more high-risk situations.

Bulletproof vests do not protect you from knives, sharp object encounters, or stab wounds. The fibers of a bulletproof vest are designed to catch bullets. This is why stab and spike-proof vests are crucial in protecting against sharp objects. A stabproof vest is made up of a very tight, laminated weave. This prevents threats from piercing the fabric. Also, it’s important to note that not all stab-proof vests protect against spikes. Depending on your situation, you may need a vest with extra protection to protect you from spikes.

Benefits of Body Armor

Protective body armor is essential for officers, particularly those involved in diminishing riots, drills, and other daily operations. It is critical safety equipment for officers everywhere. However, the use of body armor is always evolving. It is now being used by everyday people and not just law enforcement or the military. Before investing in body armor, you want to be informed. There are many important facts to know about protective body armor.

Body Armor is not 100% bulletproof

Although body armor can provide you with an extra measure of protection, it cannot protect you from every threat. You can count on it being bullet-resistant but not entirely bullet proof. In rare cases, bullets have penetrated vests that, according to their ratings, should have stopped the bullet. It is still very important to stay vigilant, responsible, and careful when wearing protective body armor.

The fabric of the vest

The fabric of a vest is also an important part of protective body armor. Soft body armor consists of highly specialized and very strong fibers. The fibers are woven and unwoven. Many vests consist of a combination of both. This fabric is very effective for stopping bullets. It has a number of ballistic panels. These vests are more likely to stop bullets that are traveling at a slower rate. However, higher-velocity, hard-tipped bullets are more likely to pierce the soft body armor vest.

Vests require rounds of testing

Every five to ten years the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) establishes and updates voluntary minimum performance standards for body armor. Now, body armor must be made to fit the female form. Therefore, the testing protocol for body armor for flat and formed armor testing ensures better protection for both men and women. Manufacturers are now required to test each design separately according to gender.

The wear and tear of the vest

According to the National Institute of Justice, the standard lifetime of a bullet proof vest is five years. This is a standard set by the NIJ. It is recommended that you check the ballistic panels on your vest after owning it for several years. Be sure to see if it has suffered any damage, like tears, burned areas, creases, or even a suspicious odor. As long as you follow the care instructions of the body armor, it should last five years. Otherwise, it can deteriorate much sooner.

Vests should be kept dry

Keeping your vest dry is essential since water can make it easier for a bullet to pierce the vest and get through. Both Dyneema and SpectraShield are two materials used in the manufacture of bullet-resistant armor. Both are water resistant and have positive buoyancy, so they’re often used in the manufacture of marine industry products. If you work around water it is best to get a vest made of DSM Dyneema or Honeywell SpectraShield instead of DuPont Kevlar.

Changes in your weight

There is not much give in protective body armor. Therefore, if your weight fluctuates or changes too much, you’ll need a different-sized vest. To be most effective, your vest must fit your body properly.

Your front and backside must be protected

Protective body armor can be hot in the summertime. However, just because it’s warm out doesn’t mean you can ditch the back panels of your vest. For the best protection, it’s essential to wear both the front and back bulletproof panels.

Hopefully, this information is a good place to start when it comes to finding the right body armor for your needs. Unfortunately, in today’s world, many everyday people do consider wearing it. However, body armor is especially important for those who are directly putting themselves in danger from bullets and stabbing attacks. Always remember body armor can save lives.

Katie Meyers is an SEO Specialist at SEO Design Chicago. Before joining the SEO Design Chicago team, she interned for them, as well as interned as a Content Writer at HZD Creates. Katie is from Washington State and has an AA and a Social Media Marketing Certificate.

22 thoughts on “How Wearing Body Armor Saves Lives

  1. There is no day that i’m not happy that my country is in NATO! Fight me, you pro-ruSSian naZi bitches! 😆

  2. Lol negro’s in Africa use life preservers as body armour.
    Although you can always use head shots but they require apcr.

  3. In prison we would make our own body armor from magazines taped to our bodies. Wouldn’t stop a guard bullet but should stop a convict shank

  4. Oooor, you can live in a country where the chances of getting shot or stabbed a lot lower than that of the USA.

    1. Except that if you factor out the Democrat law abiding citizen disarmament (gun control) cities like Chicago, LA, etc the USA is on par with those countries you taught. It’s as if disarming people makes things worse. Also, if Democrats cared about safety and people getting shot they wouldn’t try to ban people from owning body armor.

      1. Contrary to popular belief, gun control does work*. By you excluding LA, you suggest the city artificially inflates the overall homicide rate of the US. However, according to the FBI, while the state of California, alone, has 2203 murder victims in 2020, the murder rate per 100,000 people actually ranks it 29th. The reason why gun violence persists in California despite their laws is because of neighboring states with lax laws. Consider this: you are trying to fix a large hole in your backyard patio. Do you cover up some or all of the hole? As for political ideology, extremism of either side is undesirable. And both are capable of violence. But, by statistics alone, the FBI states the far-right is much more likely of violence. And this makes sense: liberal ideology is the foundation of thinking and education. Medicine, a practice that demands extreme attention to biological systems, would not flourish under stymied/conservative thinking. For example, if thinking were not advocated, would Louis Pasteur be willing to reconsider the origin of infections and bacteria?

        1. The problem with the per 100k stats is that it waters down the number of murders due to the sheer number of people in the state (actually a small number of cities in the state). Using the 100k stat it would mean that states like AK are less safe than CA. Excluding being attacked by a bear, I would feel far safer walking around in AK than in LA/Chicago/etc.

          Now to counter the claim, IF gun control did work Houston would be deadlier than Chicago (about the same size population). The fact is that the numbers don’t bear this out.
          2022 HOMICIDE RATES
          CITY # OF HOMICIDES RATE PER 100k
          CHICAGO 695 25.77
          HOUSTON 433 18.92

          Now to further prove that the per 100k stat is misleading, take the town near me. Population of 23222. If just 6 people are killed in a year the per 100k makes the rate 25.84, just as high as Chicago. Sorry but I would walk around the town wearing blinged to the max, with $100s hanging out my pockets over just walking in Chicago. BTW, there weren’t even that many killed in the town.

          1. Excellent point; I will concede with that drawback. Statistics is a tricky beast, so I would be hard-pressed to perfectly explain why gun control can work. (Plus, statistics is not my area of expertise. I only study medicine.) However, my overall point still stands: gun control works*. The issue is, for one, ensuring all states are united on the effort. But this can never be achieved because the US population is neither well-distributed nor homogeneous. Gun control works in Japan because most citizens are, more or less, united on the thought of pursuing peace. The second conundrum is the surplus of firearms in circulation. The third conundrum is there is no effective way to regulate all laws. Unless given unlimited individuals and funding, there is simply not enough overseers to go around. The fourth conundrum is whether gun violence is the disease, itself, or a symptom of something else. In some instances, it is the former because aggression, when taken to the extreme, can drive us to resort to less-than-optimal methods. (But this same aggression is the reason why the US progressed so far in so little time as a frontier in engineering and science.) Yet, in other instances, gun violence is a symptom (of anomie and isolation). Individuals join violent gangs, for example, to feel wanted as well as fulfill a sense of purpose.

            Overall, gun control can work. It is just that the regulations, themselves, are not a panacea. There needs to be more done in parallel for their full effects to be realized.

    2. Are you sure there is such a country in the world? At least in USA they have the right and the means to defend themselves.

      1. Most countries recognize the right to defend themselves; it is not exclusive to the US. The US merely outlines it in writing. In extreme scenarios, Japan recognizes the preservation of life. The very foundation of preservation is ingrained in all living organisms.

        1. That means nothing if you don’t have the right to have guns. I bet Japan’s jails are full of killers, thieves and rapists and i bet the victims of those would have wished to have the right to own guns.

          1. You cannot argue their law is invalid based on Western school of thought simply because they are not Western. Second, their jails are likely “full” of “killers, thieves and rapists,” but this is moot: all countries have them. What exactly makes Japan any more special? Third, I highly doubt their victims “wished to have the right to own guns.” Do they want retribution, justice, and/or closure? Absolutely. But any reasonable individual regardless of culture would want the same. Plus, gun culture is practically absent from Japanese society. So the ideologies behind gun ownership are irrelevant to them. If anything, most would not want guns. Japan’s peace-seeking attitudes are a direct result of WWII, so it would be antithetical to advocate ownership of a tool capable of wanton violence.

            1. Yes bud, all country have them, the difference is that USA citizens have the right to own guns . And i don’t talk about retribution, i talk about self defense . And if someone would want to not own guns, ok it is their right to be victims, but what about those who want to have a gun to defend themselves? And i didn’t talk about Japan only, my country used to have guns, but then the communists came to power, and i hope i don’t need to explain what happened after. I wish to have the right to own guns, in my country but oh well…

              1. If people have the “right to be victims,” then it sounds like your populace was rightfully disarmed. After all, you have the right to be a victim, too. Right?

                1. “the right to chose to be victims” Is better? And no, the populace wasn’t “rightfully disarmed”(really?!). Not when Stalin’s army is marching into your country.

    3. By and large, the environment you set yourself in determines your safety. I was fortunate to live in relatively affluent areas, so I was never personally affected by gun violence. Similarly, so long as you avoid the wrong areas, then the US is overall safe. Granted this can be difficult if you do not have intimate knowledge of the country, but my point stands nonetheless.

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