Body Armor Helped the Buffalo Shooter Carry Out His Rampage. This Bill Could’ve Banned It

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/buffalo-shooting-body-armor-law-massacre-1354190/

A “good guy with a gun” tried to stop the massacre at Tops supermarket in Buffalo, but was foiled by the assailant’s bulletproof vest and helmet.

When an 18-year-old began his alleged white supremacist rampage Saturday afternoon, a security guard employed by the market, former policeman Aaron Salter, shot at the gunman — and even hit him. “Our retired officer, Salter… engaged the suspect, fired rounds,” Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said at a press conference Sunday. “We have evidence that he struck him at least one time and that unfortunately had no effect.”

Could restrictions on the kind of tactical armor worn by the gunman have made a difference? The New York legislature has been debating a ban on bulletproof body armor for years. In the current session, assembly bill A352 proposed banning “the purchase or possession of a body vest” by state residents. (A nearly identical bill in the previous legislative session stalled out in committee. The current bill is not faring any better, its current status is listed as “stricken.”)

At the federal level, Sen. Charles Schumer proposed body armor restrictions in 2019 in the wake of a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio. “Shockingly, with the click of a mouse … just about anyone can order-up the kind of advanced armor … we see used in wars or all-out law enforcement raids, and that is unacceptable and needs to change,” Schumer said at the time, calling for FBI regulation. (The Responsible Body Armor Possession Act did not become law.) Such a body armor ban, had it been in effect, may have provided a level of deterrence to the gunman, who complained bitterly in his manifesto of the state’s “cucked” firearms restrictions and his inability to shop for a better rifle online.