fastbolt
Member
... With the uptick of popularity in body armor ...
Uptick of popularity of body armor? You mean criminals wearing it?
I've read about this among a number of gun forums now and again, and it's certainly a popular trope for TV shows and Movies, but I haven't been able to read about it among LE sources.
Back before I retired I was also reading and hearing people talk of the alleged increase in body armor being worn by criminals, but the ordinary facts seem to lean more heavily toward it being on the rare end of things. Rare enough that it seemed to be sensational and make the news when it occurred, but those instances were/are still few and far between.
Matter of fact, while I was out and about as a working cop in the late 2000's, the only time I remember coming across a suspect possessing body armor, he was carrying it in a duffel bag. He was armed at the time we encountered him (carrying a Walther PPK/s in nasty condition, with nasty condition ammo). He was a convicted felon, so his possession of the gun resulted in him doing some serious time (since we handed him over to ATF, at their request, so they could add the conviction to their stats under one of their existing gun violence programs).
Now, while I've been retired from my regular peace officer career for about a dozen years, and turned in my reserve ID/badge and gear about 4 years ago, I still talk to some active cops now and again. The possession of body armor is still rare enough to be noteworthy (and newsworthy, of course), so I don't plan my retirement weapon choices around concerns about encountering it. Sure, we created and planned "failure-to-stop" drills and scenarios going back many years in LE firearms training, and those are still an integral part of my continuing practice drills and periodic quals, but they aren't just predicated upon encountering some criminal attacker wearing body armor.