Examining the case for a ban on body armor after mass shooting in Buffalo

Paul Riddell didn't sell body armor to the 18-year-old bigot accused of killing 10 people Saturday at a Buffalo grocery store. Wouldn't have sold it, in fact.

He's haunted anyway. Another mass shooting, another zealot in the sort of tactical gear Riddell disperses to a deliberately limited clientele.

"All I can see is this scene playing out in my head," Riddell said, "where these innocent victims are killed by this guy."

It's a scene where a former police officer working security puts a bullet into the attacker's torso, according to authorities, but the bullet is neutralized by Payton Gendron's vest, and the guard is shot to death along with six others inside the store and three outside.

It's a scene played out before at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, a supermarket 35 miles away in Boulder, and First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas — at least 21 places in total since 1982, according to a nonprofit research group called The Violence Project, with most of them in the past decade.

It's a scene that increasingly comes with questions: How on Earth can civilians get their hands on body armor they plan to use in battles against the first responders it's meant for? Is that against the law? What can be done?

The answers: They buy it, visiting anything from a website to a swap meet. It's legal to own, with limited exceptions. And there's little to be done to restrict sales — which probably isn't as outrageous as it might seem after Buffalo.

Riddell, 53, spent nearly 15 years with the Port Huron Police Department before a car crash on patrol drove him reluctantly from the field. He works now with On Duty Gear, the police equipment store founded by his wife, Cissy, in 1999.

On Duty has a store in Clinton Township, a website and a firm policy.

"By design and by choice, we sell body armor to law enforcement, other first responders and security personnel only," Riddell said. "We do not sell to civilians."'

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Not the well-intentioned, not the clowns playing army and concocting plans to kidnap the governor of Michigan, and not, ideally, to mass murderers.

What the laws say

Federal law says it's a crime for anyone convicted of a violent felony to own a bulletproof vest. The maximum sentence is three years in prison.

State laws vary. Connecticut's is considered the most stringent, with all sales required to be face-to-face.

Michigan allows sales online or in person to anyone 18 or older without a felony conviction. Committing or attempting a violent crime while swaddled in body armor, or even threatening violence, is a separate felony beyond the original offense and can bring up to four years in prison and a $2,000 fine.

Don Shelton, who directs the criminology and criminal justice department at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, wore body armor twice in his 25 years as a district court judge in Ann Arbor. He can’t remember why, other than that he was asked to by court security.

What he does recall is how intensely uncomfortable it was — hot, sweaty, jabbing in inconvenient places.