7 ms·

Calling body armor "Military Gear" as in "only the military should be able to buy body armor" is pretty sad, even by Buzzfeed extreme-left standards. Body armo

by skrowl 6y ago

Calling body armor "Military Gear" as in "only the military should be able to buy body armor" is pretty sad, even by Buzzfeed extreme-left standards. Body armor can't kill anyone.

Daniel_sk 6y ago
Yes, me eyes were rolling when I was reading that. I understand the issue when inappropriate Ads are shown for the specific context. This can happen not just with "military" / tacticool gear but anything else, I have seen this happen many times. But pointing our that this is military gear and it's some sort of intentional case (because it's military gear) is a ridiculous reporter hyperbole.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Yup, ethically questionable yet likely effective ad placement happens in damn near every product category. The algos are too dumb to understand ethics but not too dumb that diet pills get more clicks when you put them beside videos about anorexia and "influences" who have photoshopped their bikini pics.
libertine 6y ago
The most baffling thing to me is the fact that body armor, and military grade weapons, are sold in USA... Like, we're discussing ad delivery, not the fact that a country allows companies to sell all kinds of weapons, and equipment to the general public... so I think that accurate ad targeting is the least of the problems.
- Daniel_sk 6y ago
  Body armor, helmets and any sort of protective gear is legal in most parts of world, and I would bet any EU state (and in case of my EU country I can buy an AR-15 or any sort of semi-automatic weapon).
  - libertine 6y ago
    Such protective equipment might be legal in most parts of the world, but they have a small market - the ad in the article is selling it like any regular product... literally they say "The survival gear that you are missing!", like it's some pillow being sold for a good night sleep. It's just odd. >I would bet any EU state (and in case of my EU country I can buy an AR-15 or any sort of semi-automatic weapon) Well in the case of my EU country we can't buy AR-15 or any semi-automatic rifle. The weapons owned here are mostly for hunting, not for sports/self defense.
    - Daniel_sk 6y ago
      Survival / military e-shops are quite popular in EU, although they mostly target people that play airsoft, do reenactment, survival, bushcraft and so on. Preparing for a coup or for protection against the government is not a standard target group in Europe :-). In Slovakia and Czech republic you can own basically any short or long weapon and any caliber as long as it's not full-auto. But you can of course only bring it to an official shooting range or match. Owning a weapon for self defense is possible for regular citizen and you can carry it with you (only concealed), but only for short weapons (pistols, revolvers). But it's not a constitutional right, it's a privilege and you have to meet certain condition. It's a longer topic. But I wanted to say that even though we have a lot of weapons, the gun crime rate is extremely low. Maybe that's also because every gun is registered, you have to take all the exams (medical, psychological, background check, weapon law test) and so on... It's also forbidden to bring a weapon (even if concealed) to a protest, your weapon license would be taken and say good bye to your guns. Weapons in hands of citizen doesn't equal to gun crime (also check Switzerland), but I am also not a proponent of constitutional right for everyone to carry a weapon. So it's maybe similar to social networks - they can become a danger if they are not regulated (same as weapons, if they are unregulated and freely available).
    - emilfihlman 6y ago
      Could you say what country? Because I might even bet that yes, you most definitely can buy an AR15 or any semiautomatic rifle just fine.
- cptnapalm 6y ago
  For body armor and certain kinds of weapons and attachments, one needs a Class III license. They are not available to the general public, as you wrote. EDIT: I'm wrong on body armor. I could have sworn at least some of it was restricted and required a license.
  - libertine 6y ago
    Thank you for correcting me.
    - cptnapalm 6y ago
      I will say that for a law abiding citizen, there's really no real road block to getting a Class III. However, only very few people bother to do it. In so far as to how dangerous it is, there are 630,000 legal full-auto/select-fire weapons in the US. They do require a Class III license to purchase and own and there have been no new ones since 1986. As I recall, of those 630,000, only 3 have been used illegally since 1934 and 2 of those were, ironically, by cops.
      - libertine 6y ago
        >As I recall, of those 630,000, only 3 have been used illegally since 1934 and 2 of those were, ironically, by cops. Still, as shown by the media at least, weapons became an accessory in protests and public manifestations over the past... 4 years? Even though they're not used, people have demonstrations of power by presenting their weapons. But again, my culture is very different from USA, so it's hard for me to grasp such thing.
- skrowl 6y ago
  Despite what your TV told you, military grade fully automatic weapons are 50 state illegal in the United States. Civilians may not own them. The scary guns you see on TV just LOOK like military weapons, they don't FUNCTION like them.
  - laverya 6y ago
    Automatic weapons are legal in most states, they're just an NFA item and need to have been manufactured + registered prior to 1986. (And due to this, they're expensive as all hell - think $10k for a gun that sold for ~$120 new in 1980 - and to the best of my knowledge have only been used in two murders since 1934, of which one was a police officer killing a police informant)
- jakearmitage 6y ago
  You can buy body armor in Portugual too: http://www.engardeportugal.com/produtos.htm http://www.engardeportugal.com/produtos.htm And apparently it is much needed: https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/procurado-por-tentar-matar-homem-a-tiro-na-rua-no-porto-apos-zanga-acaba-detido https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/procurado-por-tenta... https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/homem-ameaca-mulher-com-tiros-em-lisboa https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/homem-ameaca-mulher... https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/gnr-em-alerta-maximo-guardas-usam-coletes-a-prova-de-bala-para-prevenir-vinganca https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/gnr-em-alerta-maxim...
  - libertine 6y ago
    Nah, not needed at all. Such scuffs do happen but are very rare, usually revolve around some sort of treason - wife/friend/land dispute. Plus we don't have terrorist attacks (domestic and foreigners), we don't have religion fanatics that go on killing sprees, we have a good public healthcare system that helps mentally hill (we don't have serial killers, and the ones we had didn't achieve the pop culture status), we have drug addiction under control, so yeah... it's really not useful to have body armor. Just to give you some perspective - I live for 11 years in the capital, and even lived near a social project where there was shady people and A LOT of police activity, and never heard a single gun shot.
    - jakearmitage 6y ago
      I totally understand it is not needed, this was a straw man intended to detract from the idea that body armor is something alien and unnecessary for the general public. It is a personal protection item like any other. Is it useful in New York City or Lisbon? Probably not. But the same applies to other PPEs and we don't shame people for wanting to buy/use them. If a person feels safer using X, then fine, use it. As a society we used to mock people that bought Gas Masks and Respirators, marginalizing them as crazy. Then 2020 happened and all of a sudden every single gas mask, including useless old surplus, was out of stock.
      - libertine 6y ago
balozi 6y ago
Now the BuzzFeed article can be cited by other journalists/opinion writers and politicians when they weave the case for banning Y or Z. That's the same path that transformed run-of-the-mill rifles into scary "assault weapons."
titzer 6y ago
It's the back half of the arms race. Just wait until the industry for armor-piercing bullets gets ramped up. Look at the cold war arms race. Anti-missile technology just led to a massive increase in nuclear weapons production. If your enemies defenses are 90% effective at shooting down missiles, just launch 10x as many missiles! This why both the United States and Soviet Union peaked at over 30,000 nuclear warheads[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_stockpiles_and_nuclear_tests_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_sto...
- jjk166 6y ago
  Well if you don't wear bullet-proof armor, their switching over to armor piercing bullets doesn't put you in any more danger. If anything it's probably better than them using ammunition optimized for use against non-armored targets such as yourself.
  - titzer 6y ago
    Armor costs money and it's heavy. If armor piercing rounds become common, it's a total waste. It's pretty ridiculous that we are having this conversation about civilian life. What the heck is happening in this country?
    - jjk166 6y ago
      As someone who isn't buying armor, it in no way hurts me that it's expensive and heavy, but every dollar they spend on armor or weapons to specifically fight people wearing armor instead of a dollar spent on weapons meant to kill people like me is an improvement. I won't say it's smart to buy body armor, it isn't, but it's still in my best interest to encourage the whack jobs to waste their money.
      - titzer 6y ago
        Wow, I might suggest de-escalation, but yeah, feed that bear some more crazy. That'll work out fine.
JeremyNT 6y ago
Can you describe a typical scenario where a civilian might want to use body armor? I understand that shooting high powered rifles is a lot of fun, so recreation makes sense with respect to weaponry, but I'm legitimately confused about why a civilian would ever want to own body armor. I can't imagine it's terribly comfortable to wear, and it doesn't seem very fun to me.
- thereddaikon 6y ago
  Do you live in a cave? This past year has given a lot of people reason to want body armor. Its also a free country, or at least is supposed to be. If someone wants to wear armor why not?
- shoemakersteve 6y ago
  Really? You can't imagine any? Regardless of how unlikely it might be, there's a very real risk that shit's gonna go down in the next week and who knows what might happen. Even if nothing does happen, there's been an increasing amount of unrest in the past few years, it doesn't hurt to be prepared for the worst. You probably won't ever need to use the spare tire in your trunk, but it's reassuring to know that it's there if ever you need it.
  - JeremyNT 6y ago
    I'd be interested in better understanding the threat model here - the scenario where it's actually useful. Call it a failure of imagination, but to me it seems exceedingly unwise for a law abiding civilian to be entering a situation where body armor would be helpful (and I say this as a firearm owner).
    - scanny 6y ago
      I would think that any industry where shrapnel could be present: Civilian weapons R&D, mining where explosives are being used, private security work, civilian firearm instruction, protection for targetted individuals e.g. Malcom X / MLK, Journalists in conflict zones (you saw them warn in DC during the protests as well) Albiet the U.S. has and always will be a special case due to high firearm ownership and rather open ownership of those sorts of things.
Yhippa 6y ago
Any adversary to someone wearing body armor now has to increase their DPS, so to speak, should there be an incident.

by skrowl 6y ago

Calling body armor "Military Gear" as in "only the military should be able to buy body armor" is pretty sad, even by Buzzfeed extreme-left standards. Body armor can't kill anyone.

Daniel_sk 6y ago

Yes, me eyes were rolling when I was reading that. I understand the issue when inappropriate Ads are shown for the specific context. This can happen not just with "military" / tacticool gear but anything else, I have seen this happen many times. But pointing our that this is military gear and it's some sort of intentional case (because it's military gear) is a ridiculous reporter hyperbole.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Yup, ethically questionable yet likely effective ad placement happens in damn near every product category. The algos are too dumb to understand ethics but not too dumb that diet pills get more clicks when you put them beside videos about anorexia and "influences" who have photoshopped their bikini pics.

libertine 6y ago

The most baffling thing to me is the fact that body armor, and military grade weapons, are sold in USA... Like, we're discussing ad delivery, not the fact that a country allows companies to sell all kinds of weapons, and equipment to the general public... so I think that accurate ad targeting is the least of the problems.

Daniel_sk 6y ago
Body armor, helmets and any sort of protective gear is legal in most parts of world, and I would bet any EU state (and in case of my EU country I can buy an AR-15 or any sort of semi-automatic weapon).
- libertine 6y ago
  Such protective equipment might be legal in most parts of the world, but they have a small market - the ad in the article is selling it like any regular product... literally they say "The survival gear that you are missing!", like it's some pillow being sold for a good night sleep. It's just odd. >I would bet any EU state (and in case of my EU country I can buy an AR-15 or any sort of semi-automatic weapon) Well in the case of my EU country we can't buy AR-15 or any semi-automatic rifle. The weapons owned here are mostly for hunting, not for sports/self defense.
  - Daniel_sk 6y ago
    Survival / military e-shops are quite popular in EU, although they mostly target people that play airsoft, do reenactment, survival, bushcraft and so on. Preparing for a coup or for protection against the government is not a standard target group in Europe :-). In Slovakia and Czech republic you can own basically any short or long weapon and any caliber as long as it's not full-auto. But you can of course only bring it to an official shooting range or match. Owning a weapon for self defense is possible for regular citizen and you can carry it with you (only concealed), but only for short weapons (pistols, revolvers). But it's not a constitutional right, it's a privilege and you have to meet certain condition. It's a longer topic. But I wanted to say that even though we have a lot of weapons, the gun crime rate is extremely low. Maybe that's also because every gun is registered, you have to take all the exams (medical, psychological, background check, weapon law test) and so on... It's also forbidden to bring a weapon (even if concealed) to a protest, your weapon license would be taken and say good bye to your guns. Weapons in hands of citizen doesn't equal to gun crime (also check Switzerland), but I am also not a proponent of constitutional right for everyone to carry a weapon. So it's maybe similar to social networks - they can become a danger if they are not regulated (same as weapons, if they are unregulated and freely available).
  - emilfihlman 6y ago
    Could you say what country? Because I might even bet that yes, you most definitely can buy an AR15 or any semiautomatic rifle just fine.
cptnapalm 6y ago
For body armor and certain kinds of weapons and attachments, one needs a Class III license. They are not available to the general public, as you wrote. EDIT: I'm wrong on body armor. I could have sworn at least some of it was restricted and required a license.
- libertine 6y ago
  Thank you for correcting me.
  - cptnapalm 6y ago
    I will say that for a law abiding citizen, there's really no real road block to getting a Class III. However, only very few people bother to do it. In so far as to how dangerous it is, there are 630,000 legal full-auto/select-fire weapons in the US. They do require a Class III license to purchase and own and there have been no new ones since 1986. As I recall, of those 630,000, only 3 have been used illegally since 1934 and 2 of those were, ironically, by cops.
    - libertine 6y ago
      >As I recall, of those 630,000, only 3 have been used illegally since 1934 and 2 of those were, ironically, by cops. Still, as shown by the media at least, weapons became an accessory in protests and public manifestations over the past... 4 years? Even though they're not used, people have demonstrations of power by presenting their weapons. But again, my culture is very different from USA, so it's hard for me to grasp such thing.
skrowl 6y ago
Despite what your TV told you, military grade fully automatic weapons are 50 state illegal in the United States. Civilians may not own them. The scary guns you see on TV just LOOK like military weapons, they don't FUNCTION like them.
- laverya 6y ago
  Automatic weapons are legal in most states, they're just an NFA item and need to have been manufactured + registered prior to 1986. (And due to this, they're expensive as all hell - think $10k for a gun that sold for ~$120 new in 1980 - and to the best of my knowledge have only been used in two murders since 1934, of which one was a police officer killing a police informant)
jakearmitage 6y ago
You can buy body armor in Portugual too: http://www.engardeportugal.com/produtos.htm http://www.engardeportugal.com/produtos.htm And apparently it is much needed: https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/procurado-por-tentar-matar-homem-a-tiro-na-rua-no-porto-apos-zanga-acaba-detido https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/procurado-por-tenta... https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/homem-ameaca-mulher-com-tiros-em-lisboa https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/homem-ameaca-mulher... https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/gnr-em-alerta-maximo-guardas-usam-coletes-a-prova-de-bala-para-prevenir-vinganca https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/gnr-em-alerta-maxim...
- libertine 6y ago
  Nah, not needed at all. Such scuffs do happen but are very rare, usually revolve around some sort of treason - wife/friend/land dispute. Plus we don't have terrorist attacks (domestic and foreigners), we don't have religion fanatics that go on killing sprees, we have a good public healthcare system that helps mentally hill (we don't have serial killers, and the ones we had didn't achieve the pop culture status), we have drug addiction under control, so yeah... it's really not useful to have body armor. Just to give you some perspective - I live for 11 years in the capital, and even lived near a social project where there was shady people and A LOT of police activity, and never heard a single gun shot.
  - jakearmitage 6y ago
    I totally understand it is not needed, this was a straw man intended to detract from the idea that body armor is something alien and unnecessary for the general public. It is a personal protection item like any other. Is it useful in New York City or Lisbon? Probably not. But the same applies to other PPEs and we don't shame people for wanting to buy/use them. If a person feels safer using X, then fine, use it. As a society we used to mock people that bought Gas Masks and Respirators, marginalizing them as crazy. Then 2020 happened and all of a sudden every single gas mask, including useless old surplus, was out of stock.
    - libertine 6y ago

balozi 6y ago

Now the BuzzFeed article can be cited by other journalists/opinion writers and politicians when they weave the case for banning Y or Z. That's the same path that transformed run-of-the-mill rifles into scary "assault weapons."

titzer 6y ago

It's the back half of the arms race. Just wait until the industry for armor-piercing bullets gets ramped up. Look at the cold war arms race. Anti-missile technology just led to a massive increase in nuclear weapons production. If your enemies defenses are 90% effective at shooting down missiles, just launch 10x as many missiles! This why both the United States and Soviet Union peaked at over 30,000 nuclear warheads[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_stockpiles_and_nuclear_tests_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_sto...

jjk166 6y ago
Well if you don't wear bullet-proof armor, their switching over to armor piercing bullets doesn't put you in any more danger. If anything it's probably better than them using ammunition optimized for use against non-armored targets such as yourself.
- titzer 6y ago
  Armor costs money and it's heavy. If armor piercing rounds become common, it's a total waste. It's pretty ridiculous that we are having this conversation about civilian life. What the heck is happening in this country?
  - jjk166 6y ago
    As someone who isn't buying armor, it in no way hurts me that it's expensive and heavy, but every dollar they spend on armor or weapons to specifically fight people wearing armor instead of a dollar spent on weapons meant to kill people like me is an improvement. I won't say it's smart to buy body armor, it isn't, but it's still in my best interest to encourage the whack jobs to waste their money.
    - titzer 6y ago
      Wow, I might suggest de-escalation, but yeah, feed that bear some more crazy. That'll work out fine.

JeremyNT 6y ago

Can you describe a typical scenario where a civilian might want to use body armor? I understand that shooting high powered rifles is a lot of fun, so recreation makes sense with respect to weaponry, but I'm legitimately confused about why a civilian would ever want to own body armor. I can't imagine it's terribly comfortable to wear, and it doesn't seem very fun to me.

thereddaikon 6y ago
Do you live in a cave? This past year has given a lot of people reason to want body armor. Its also a free country, or at least is supposed to be. If someone wants to wear armor why not?
shoemakersteve 6y ago
Really? You can't imagine any? Regardless of how unlikely it might be, there's a very real risk that shit's gonna go down in the next week and who knows what might happen. Even if nothing does happen, there's been an increasing amount of unrest in the past few years, it doesn't hurt to be prepared for the worst. You probably won't ever need to use the spare tire in your trunk, but it's reassuring to know that it's there if ever you need it.
- JeremyNT 6y ago
  I'd be interested in better understanding the threat model here - the scenario where it's actually useful. Call it a failure of imagination, but to me it seems exceedingly unwise for a law abiding civilian to be entering a situation where body armor would be helpful (and I say this as a firearm owner).
  - scanny 6y ago
    I would think that any industry where shrapnel could be present: Civilian weapons R&D, mining where explosives are being used, private security work, civilian firearm instruction, protection for targetted individuals e.g. Malcom X / MLK, Journalists in conflict zones (you saw them warn in DC during the protests as well) Albiet the U.S. has and always will be a special case due to high firearm ownership and rather open ownership of those sorts of things.

Yhippa 6y ago

Any adversary to someone wearing body armor now has to increase their DPS, so to speak, should there be an incident.