New York Banned Body Armor

On June 6, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law a package of gun reforms that includes expanding the state’s red flag law, raising the legal age to buy semiautomatic rifles and requiring a license, and banning the sale of body armor to civilians. The legislation came three weeks after a teenager wearing body armor killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket. The body armor deflected a security guard’s bullets and allowed the gunman to continue his rampage.To get more news about bullet proof vests, you can visit bulletproofboxs.com official website.

But the new law doesn’t prohibit the type of body armor worn by the gunman, Hochul’s office confirmed to The Trace. The words “body armor” don’t even appear anywhere in the bill, even though it’s been described as a “body armor” ban by Hochul and state lawmakers in news releases.

According to law enforcement, the 18-year-old gunman wore what’s known as a plate carrier: a vest, often made of ordinary fabric, that holds hard armor plates designed to protect against rifle rounds. The legislation signed by Hochul bans the purchase of “body vests,” which are defined in state law as “a bullet-resistant soft body armor.” Soft body armor is flexible, more concealable, and designed to stop small-caliber rounds.

Hochul’s office confirmed that the ban does not expressly cover hard body armor, and sent us a statement saying that “she would fully support additional measures to strengthen the laws further if passed by the legislature.”

Assemblymember Sarah Clark, an upstate lawmaker, also conceded that the new law doesn’t cover hard plates. She explained that because plate carriers can be made of bulletproof materials, the law would by extension “capture scenarios like we saw with the Buffalo gunman.” However, many plate carriers are made of materials like nylon, and would not be banned. “I think we will have to wait for the final regulations to come out to see how this is truly implemented,” Clark added.

The law is so confusing that not even its chief sponsor seemed to understand the gap in the measure. Assemblymember Jonathan Jacobson told The Trace he believed it covered hard armor: “That’s my understanding.” Jacobson said that if the body armor ban “is somehow interpreted” to exclude hard body armor, “we’re coming back in January, so we’ll amend it.”
Beau of the Fifth Column, a journalist and YouTube personality, was among the first to flag the confusing wording of the ban. “Modern body armor isn’t soft. It’s a hard plate,” he said in a recent video. Without a legislative fix, the law is a “feel-good measure” that’s ultimately ineffective, he said.

The ban wasn’t devised in the aftermath of the Buffalo shooting. Jacobson first introduced a version of it in 2019, but it stalled. The legislative session ended 19 days after the Buffalo shooting, so the timing suggests that the law was revived, but not necessarily tailored to the moment. That’s evident in the state’s definition of “body vest,” which hasn’t been updated in years: soft armor “providing, as a minimum standard, the level of protection known as threat level I which shall mean at least seven layers of bullet-resistant material.” Body armor is tested and rated by its protection level, according to the federal National Institute of Justice. “Threat level I” is a rating that the NIJ hasn’t used in over a decade.