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> A DuPont spokeswoman estimated that since the 1970s, 3,000 police officers have been saved from bullet wounds through the use of equipment reinforced with Kev

> A DuPont spokeswoman estimated that since the 1970s, 3,000 police officers have been saved from bullet wounds through the use of equipment reinforced with Kevlar [...] Does that number seem really low to anybody else?

hga 12y ago
Have you ever worn Kevlar body armor? The Feds have rather stupid requirements for it, that don't match the real world, but depend on deformation of clay behind a vest. So what cops wear is stiffer, and perhaps hotter than needed. Although I think heat is unavoidable, there's even relevant lines in Shakespeare's King Henry the Fourth: Like a rich armour worn in heat of day, That scalds with safety. So plenty of cops are killed because they're not wearing their uncomfortable armor; it's sort of like strapping a barrel around your torso. Another factor is that better, albeit more expensive polymers have been developed, especially very long chain polyethylene (as in 1-2 million units long); my next vest will be made from that. Also Kevlar loses its protective strength if wet. There was also a short period where a very bad new polymer was used by at least one company, it quickly degraded, and that cost a few cops their lives. Finally, while the gun-grabbers' campaign against non-existent "cop killer bullets!!!" accomplished nothing directly affecting cops on the ground, indirectly it taught a lot of people that cops wear body armor, resulting, or so I've read without personally drilling down to the raw data, an increase in criminals killing them with head shots. Ah, I should also note that soft body armor saves by preventing penetration, and decreases kinetic impact by stretching the fibers. So a hit can still hurt a lot, enough to potentially fatally distract you during a fight, especially bad if you're alone. My home defense body armor has a hard rifle plate in the front to mitigate this. Ah, I should also add some numbers. There aren't that many cops killed on duty, here's numbers broken down by years: http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.html http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.htm... I don't think Kevlar body armor went into common use until perhaps the '80s, and without adding heavy rifle plates, which only SWAT teams routinely use (and our troops in the last decade), it offers very little protection against the #1 killer of cops, vehicle related accidents (in them, or struck by them).
- reader5000 12y ago
  >...especially bad if you're alone. My home defense body armor has a hard rifle plate in the front to mitigate this. I can't understand why a well-rounded individual like yourself would be living alone.
  - hga 12y ago
    Heh. I'm not, but I live on a separate floor of a building with my father, so if we suffer from a home invasion one of us will be somewhat delayed in coming to the aid of the other. If we're alerted to it by the alarm system, then we'll be taking some time to clear our floor and turn off the alarm before likely realizing the other was threatened (an. And it's still an issue if you've got an armed partner, neither of you can necessarily afford to be disabled for a few moments. Suppose there are multiple invaders ... in any case, "tunnel vision" in focusing on one threat is to be avoided, e.g. you don't want to rush past a non-shooting invader and then get bushwhacked by him.
    - reader5000 12y ago
      This sounds good, but you're failing to take into account chemtrails. Think about it man, they already got you. Best to move to a safe location like say far outside of any US border.
      - hga 12y ago
        You and kghose laugh at me and my father, but it sounds like we've got proven, time tested answers to violent crime directed at us, and you're in the "Dial 911 and die" category. Latest failure: dial 911, get transferred to voicemail, and end up shooting one of the intruders: http://fox8.com/2014/06/14/man-shoots-intruder-after-his-911-call-is-transferred-to-voice-mail/ http://fox8.com/2014/06/14/man-shoots-intruder-after-his-911... I do hope that you have enough moral consistency that if or when things get nasty, you don't pester your "gun nut" and "prepper" acquaintances but accept the fate your unpreparedness would normally dictate.
jameshart 12y ago
No, no it doesn't. Kevlar has been available to the police for 40 years. 3000 bullets stopped over 40 years amounts to a cop getting shot and saved by kevlar every 4.9 days. I assume that for every 10 cops saved by kevlar, some number are not saved... so that implies that people are firing bullets at cops even more frequently than that. If that seems low, then I think we have a real problem...
- hga 12y ago
  Although that's "save from a bullet wound". Some time ago I read about a statistic that normal, street handgun rounds have about a 1 in 4 chance of killing someone hit in the torso. I'd presume since then improvements in and additional trauma centers have dropped that. On the other hand we shouldn't denigrate the utility of preventing any bullet wound; just surviving is a low threshold, contrary to many Hollywood portrayals getting shot is a very bad thing that frequently won't result in complete return of function. I'd bet that's especially true for the torso hits normal concealable body armor stops. Not that heavier external body armor has that much greater coverage, although I'm sure there's additional saves with it.
001sky 12y ago
Spectra dominates most applications today, so kevlar is not used so much for ballistics vests. Additionally, the police are not the main customers, much is military. Third, kevlar is still used for cut-resistance but that will not show up in this data (nor would the military lives saved). So for these and other reasons, its intuitively correct to think that the invetion of kevlar has broadly saved more lives than what is mentioned. Or at least that would be my guess. Other people may have actual data to flesh the subject out.
- hga 12y ago
  Spectra is one of the brand names for the ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE, UHMW) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-molecular-weight_polyethylene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-molecular-weight_po... I mentioned in one of my other postings in this subthread. I've gotten the impression, at least from one vendor, that mixed aramid and UHMWPE fabrics are common for law enforcement vests, due to their lower cost. And of course plain aramid is still cheaper, so is still used a lot.
Spooky23 12y ago
Life isn't TV. Most cops never fire their gun. My neighbor growing up was a grizzled NYPD patrol sergeant. He said that he never pulled his gun on anyone, but he cracked a few heads in his time with a club. Nowadays, it's easier to shoot than to beat up people.

hga 12y ago

Have you ever worn Kevlar body armor? The Feds have rather stupid requirements for it, that don't match the real world, but depend on deformation of clay behind a vest. So what cops wear is stiffer, and perhaps hotter than needed. Although I think heat is unavoidable, there's even relevant lines in Shakespeare's King Henry the Fourth: Like a rich armour worn in heat of day, That scalds with safety. So plenty of cops are killed because they're not wearing their uncomfortable armor; it's sort of like strapping a barrel around your torso. Another factor is that better, albeit more expensive polymers have been developed, especially very long chain polyethylene (as in 1-2 million units long); my next vest will be made from that. Also Kevlar loses its protective strength if wet. There was also a short period where a very bad new polymer was used by at least one company, it quickly degraded, and that cost a few cops their lives. Finally, while the gun-grabbers' campaign against non-existent "cop killer bullets!!!" accomplished nothing directly affecting cops on the ground, indirectly it taught a lot of people that cops wear body armor, resulting, or so I've read without personally drilling down to the raw data, an increase in criminals killing them with head shots. Ah, I should also note that soft body armor saves by preventing penetration, and decreases kinetic impact by stretching the fibers. So a hit can still hurt a lot, enough to potentially fatally distract you during a fight, especially bad if you're alone. My home defense body armor has a hard rifle plate in the front to mitigate this. Ah, I should also add some numbers. There aren't that many cops killed on duty, here's numbers broken down by years: http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.html http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.htm... I don't think Kevlar body armor went into common use until perhaps the '80s, and without adding heavy rifle plates, which only SWAT teams routinely use (and our troops in the last decade), it offers very little protection against the #1 killer of cops, vehicle related accidents (in them, or struck by them).

reader5000 12y ago
>...especially bad if you're alone. My home defense body armor has a hard rifle plate in the front to mitigate this. I can't understand why a well-rounded individual like yourself would be living alone.
- hga 12y ago
  Heh. I'm not, but I live on a separate floor of a building with my father, so if we suffer from a home invasion one of us will be somewhat delayed in coming to the aid of the other. If we're alerted to it by the alarm system, then we'll be taking some time to clear our floor and turn off the alarm before likely realizing the other was threatened (an. And it's still an issue if you've got an armed partner, neither of you can necessarily afford to be disabled for a few moments. Suppose there are multiple invaders ... in any case, "tunnel vision" in focusing on one threat is to be avoided, e.g. you don't want to rush past a non-shooting invader and then get bushwhacked by him.
  - reader5000 12y ago
    This sounds good, but you're failing to take into account chemtrails. Think about it man, they already got you. Best to move to a safe location like say far outside of any US border.
    - hga 12y ago
      You and kghose laugh at me and my father, but it sounds like we've got proven, time tested answers to violent crime directed at us, and you're in the "Dial 911 and die" category. Latest failure: dial 911, get transferred to voicemail, and end up shooting one of the intruders: http://fox8.com/2014/06/14/man-shoots-intruder-after-his-911-call-is-transferred-to-voice-mail/ http://fox8.com/2014/06/14/man-shoots-intruder-after-his-911... I do hope that you have enough moral consistency that if or when things get nasty, you don't pester your "gun nut" and "prepper" acquaintances but accept the fate your unpreparedness would normally dictate.

jameshart 12y ago

No, no it doesn't. Kevlar has been available to the police for 40 years. 3000 bullets stopped over 40 years amounts to a cop getting shot and saved by kevlar every 4.9 days. I assume that for every 10 cops saved by kevlar, some number are not saved... so that implies that people are firing bullets at cops even more frequently than that. If that seems low, then I think we have a real problem...

hga 12y ago
Although that's "save from a bullet wound". Some time ago I read about a statistic that normal, street handgun rounds have about a 1 in 4 chance of killing someone hit in the torso. I'd presume since then improvements in and additional trauma centers have dropped that. On the other hand we shouldn't denigrate the utility of preventing any bullet wound; just surviving is a low threshold, contrary to many Hollywood portrayals getting shot is a very bad thing that frequently won't result in complete return of function. I'd bet that's especially true for the torso hits normal concealable body armor stops. Not that heavier external body armor has that much greater coverage, although I'm sure there's additional saves with it.

001sky 12y ago

Spectra dominates most applications today, so kevlar is not used so much for ballistics vests. Additionally, the police are not the main customers, much is military. Third, kevlar is still used for cut-resistance but that will not show up in this data (nor would the military lives saved). So for these and other reasons, its intuitively correct to think that the invetion of kevlar has broadly saved more lives than what is mentioned. Or at least that would be my guess. Other people may have actual data to flesh the subject out.

hga 12y ago
Spectra is one of the brand names for the ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE, UHMW) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-molecular-weight_polyethylene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-molecular-weight_po... I mentioned in one of my other postings in this subthread. I've gotten the impression, at least from one vendor, that mixed aramid and UHMWPE fabrics are common for law enforcement vests, due to their lower cost. And of course plain aramid is still cheaper, so is still used a lot.

Spooky23 12y ago

Life isn't TV. Most cops never fire their gun. My neighbor growing up was a grizzled NYPD patrol sergeant. He said that he never pulled his gun on anyone, but he cracked a few heads in his time with a club. Nowadays, it's easier to shoot than to beat up people.