Body armor is making mass shootings more deadly

The mass shootings that occurred this month in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York had several things in common. The shooters were both 18 years old, both used semi-automatic weapons, and both were wearing tactical gear.

Salvador Ramos, the attacker in Uvalde, muscled his way past a school police officer and into an elementary school wearing a “tactical vest carrier,” Texas police lieutenant Christopher Olivarez told reporters. On May 15, Payton S. Gendron killed 13 people at a Buffalo supermarket while wearing body armor, tactical gear, and a helmet. Ramos took 21 lives, 19 of them young children. Gendron, who targeted Black people and was shot at and hit by a retired police officer on the scene, killed 13. In a 180-page manifesto, he specifically cited procuring body armor to protect himself from armed security.

Military-style body armor is readily available in the US, and nonprofit The Violence Project has found that in the past decade it’s increasingly favored by perpetrators of mass shootings. While the debate on gun control is well trodden, dialogue around body armor is harder to find, and regulations are exceedingly scarce.

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