The future is now! A brilliant University of Delaware professor has invented a liquid that when added to kevlar creates a thin flexible armour that can be worn like a pair of jeans. http://media1.break.com/dnet/media/content/newarmor23.wmv
Something like that you probably won't ever see it hit the street. Can you imaging the implication of that for law enforcement!
Sniper, LEOs have a big problem already. They can't shoot for crap. You ever see the video of the guys in full body armor with full auto weapons and it took them hours to finally kill those guys? That pretty much made a statement that the average LEO couldn't hit the broadside of a barn if they were standing two feet from it. Sure they have full-auto weapons, sure they had body armor, however that armor wasn't covering their faces. That's when a headshot should be used. They did not even conceive the idea from the start. That's my two cents.
I look at this from a totally different point of view. Can you imagine what this would mean to the general public? Personally I don't think that LE should have anything that we cannot. All of those civilian contractors over in Iraq could be wearing it. Postal carriers in bad parts of town, a business man away on travel who gets lost in a dark alley, hell lots of people through daily walks of life could have the protection that they did not before. Nobody likes the big bulky vest of today, but something that could be worn jeans and a shirt. It might even make it safe to visit New Orleans again one day.
I don't think N.O. will be good for visiting until after it is nuked off the map, let the nuke clean itself out, then rebuilt. Maybe in about a thousand years. My N.O. died when they elected that idiot to office that calls himself mayor. That prejudiced SOB let the New Orleans that I loved, die in the storm and he is further trying to choke the life out of it. Too bad he didn't drown in the dirty water with those he screwed over.
I could see it being made available if nothing else already applied to stuff in some forms. Kind of like you can already buy kevlar chaps for working with chainsaws and such but they are heavey and uncomfortable. I could see the gooberment raising a stink over it though if they tried to put it on the market to be applied by the consumer especialy if marketed as balistic protection, hell as I understand it it is even illegal to wear a vest if you dont have a permit for it. I figure any citizen has just as much right to be protected from gun fire as any LEO but a lot of law makers wont see it that way.
Unfortunately a lot of the sheeple think the same way as a lot of the law enforcement. I don't see me buying it, but if things changed and I worked in a really dangerous environment (NO, Houston, Detroit, St. Louis, etc.) I would want the option.
I could make a pretty good case for that stuff as motorcycle riding gear. That it could be used for a second purpose wouldn't be all bad, either.
You know the first time a felon used them in the commission of a crime, the would be called "assault jeans" or "assault shirt" That would be a dirty word then!