Some thoughts about body armor

During the class I took a couple weeks ago some considerations regarding body armor became clear.

The second day we had heavy rain and of course we ended up soaking wet. Even if you had rain gear on doing pushups in a few inches of water meant that your armor got wet.

Soft body armor, usually made of Kevlar or other synthetic fabric loses up to 40% of its ballistic resistance when wet. Constant exposure to water and UV will deteriorate the material as well, so you want to avoid storing them wet, and sun drying. 

Expensive gear that ruins because of water and sunlight? Who wants that?  Well... you probably own guns, correct? Maybe its worth considering then that 80% of the people that died in gunfights would have survived if they had body armor on. Puts things into perspecitve, doesn't it? In my bedroom witihn fast reach, there's my gun, flashlight and body armor. 

The panels come with a waterproof protection but still the stitches and small cracks in the material means water can still get inside. I had to cut up the plastic in mine so that they would dry up, used a hair dryer in slow mode to patiently remove the humidity.

This is not much of a problem if you replace your panels periodically but its still important to check and make sure they are not wet after rain of heavy sweating. Again, wet fabric reduces the level of protection and eventually ruins the material, so check often.

Now, during high crime yet "normal" times, you’d use you BA in specific circumstances. Going to pick up large amounts of cash from the bank, visiting or traveling through bad parts of town for some reason, meeting up with strangers and sure, attending medium or advanced shooting classes where the risk factor is considered high due to people shooting in group, sometimes finding yourself in a situation where you have to trust a stranger with a loaded gun at your back.

Another example where you may not avoid having your armor soaking wet may be when organizing a neighborhood watch or standing guard on your own after some disaster like a huricane or earthquake, Chile comes to mind. Wet armor panels ? Imagine Katrina and worrying about keeping your armor dry when everything around you is covered by 6 to 12 feet of water. 

One of our sponsors, bulletproofme.com, has Ceramic Rifle plates starting at $200, remember to mention "FerFAL".

During that day I found myself wishing I had stand alone rifle plates instead. Plates aren’t that sensitive to water ( but they do break so be careful not to abuse them much). You don’t want to leave them or their carrier wet but they are much easier to dry up and don’t deteriorate because of humidity.

Its true that its best to combine both, soft body armor and plates, so as to have side protection as well, but its good to know you have plates that resist humanity and UV better.

Those of us that buy our own armor wont have replacement for it any time soon. Decades will go buy and you’ll have the same gear, and while soft body armor may still be effective if you took good are of it, plates aren’t that delicate. 

Get both. Sometimes you’ll want to be discrete and use soft BA, maybe decades from now you wont be able to replace those panels for one reason or another, but the plates will still be serviceable.

Maybe you want to keep a kit in your car/weekend cabin that includes body armor, but you just want something you can lave there and forget about it until you need it, 5 or 20 years from now. For that, stand alone rifle plates are a good idea. 

FerFAL

Operations security (OPSEC) and what bad guys want

Hi there Fernando,

Love your blog and words of experience and advice.  I have a quick question.  I've been interviewed by a few news outlets (Newsweek, a FOX affiliate, a few radio stations, newspaper) on the topic of preparedness or 'preppers' as we're known here in the U.S.  The latest request comes from a news magazine called Nightline.  It is very widely known, has lots of viewers.

From the very first interview, I have been criticized, sometimes mercilessly, not by dopey oblivious-niks as much as people on MY side!  They have all said I'm putting my family in danger by talking about preparedness and what I have done and am doing in terms of water and food storage, firearms training, etc.  I know all about OPSEC but have figured that home invasions by people searching for food is nearly 100% a non-happening, and if truly bad times come, my family will likely be gone and long forgotten.  Even as bad as Katrina was, people weren't stealing food from homes.

My question for you, before I make this interview decision, is this.  Is that kind of crime common in Argentina?  I've read that you keep a low profile, e.g. no fancy jewelry, very plain looking clothes and vehicle, etc., and that would be us.  But are people so desperate that they would break into homes and possibly kill others in search of food and water? 

That world seems so far from my experiences here in America, although no one can predict the future.  My own opinion is that we will more or less slouch into socialism with a much higher rate of unemployment and poverty.  With all the recent changes that have been made, our country will have been overtaken without the shedding of any blood.  Surreal.

At any rate, do you have any advice for me?  The news producer said they would like to do a Day in the Life...story about me.  Follow me around as I use our solar oven, food dehydrator, go to the shooting range with us, etc.  All the other stories have been extremely fair.  I think I have even managed to convert at least a couple of the journalists.  :o)  My name is already out there, along with my city, so on one hand, maybe it won't make any difference.

Thanks so much,

Lisa Bedford

TheSurvivalMom.com

Hi Lisa, several interesting questions there I'm sure others are asking themselves too.

First of all, you have to accept that there is a certain amount of people in the survival and preparedness community that you wouldn't get along well with if they lived next door.
Everything from religious fanatics of all sort that believe this or that group of people should be exterminated, to racists of all kinds, missoganists that believe women are on this Earth to "obay" men, and all sorts of extremists and nutcases. Then you have the hopeless doomers that get depressed during the good times, cant imagine what they would do during the bad ones, and lets not forget the "When SHTF... I'll be the king of the hill and have 20 year old swimsuit models fighting over me".
You also have people that make a living out of paranoia, promising the end of the world every 5 years or so, always finding one situation or another that will trigger a snow ball effect that will inevitably end with the world as you know it.

Its true that many of us are just sane, normal people with none of these delusions but you have to accept that they are out there, installed in the survival and preparedness community.  They'll pick up the phone, write angry emails and critizise everything you say.
Can you let that affect you? Of course not.
Regarding Opsec and letting strangers know what you do, you have to find a middle ground. Of course you cannot, teach others, make videos and such without compromising in that area.
Something similar happens when you talk to people trying to get them on board.
Try finding a middle ground. If your face is out there, try not mentioning the exact county were you live, try not mentioning the names of your kids or how old they are, specially don't name the school they go to.
If all they have is your face and name, its much harder to find you if you don't give more exact information.

About your question: No, food isn't targeted. Bad guys here want cash, jewelry, guns and expensive gadgets, mostly in that order. There's no home invasions to steal food, money is still much more compact and gets you more food than you can carry if you have enough paper currency so why bother?

It is true though that in some cases, people will kill for just a bit of food or water. The aftermath of the earthquake in Chile is a recent example and proof of that. Avoid showing off pics of large amounts of food, a few items is enough to illustrate and make a point.
When it comes to interviews, know that sensationalism sells. A typical thing is asking you to show your guns or ammo. Dont do it, Editing is everything and they'll find a way to make you look paranoid or weird in some way. Its an image that makes you look bad but it attracts more viewers. Even if they are fair, you always have to keep in mind that they have to sell a product, so even if its fair they can use all sorts of strategies to bring more attention to the gun, everything from camera closeups to music, silences, its too good for them to let it go to waste.
Tell them that you'd gladly talk about armed self defense but that for security measures you dont want to show around your guns.
Of course dont say much at all about your home security, use another home or combination of a couple others and their setup so as to not give bad guys a road map to your home security setup.
 Same for a camera walking around showing the layout. Ask for still video in one place and not walking all around the house while filming.

Good luck with the show and interviews, keep those things in mind!

FerFAL

PS: About packing a 22LR. Its comfortable but you sure dont want a 22LR to fight the next maniac that walks into the fast food joint where you are with your kids. Comfort and price (of gun or ammo) Should not be an issue. You're life priceless so go for the best you can carry, teh best round you can fire. Your life and the life of your kids is well worth the $25 x 20 round premium ammo box and the $500 for a good handgun. For the size of your Walter 22LR, there's 9mm subcompact Glocks. Keltec also makes a very small 9mm pistol. Dont go for smaller than 9mm, that's your caliber limit for a serious self defense gun.

I enjoying your book. It's definently a different take on what and how to prepare.


You (and many of you readers) might find this interesting.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/United-States-of-Argentina-89551242.html

John

Hi John, thanks for the link.
Its creepy to see all these similarities. I'm sure I said so several times before but I can't avoid mentioning again since more and more reporters and writers notice it to, posting articles with these titles comparing the Argentina debacle to the current situation in USA.

FerFAL

United States of Argentina

Examiner Editorial
March 31, 2010

When White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel last year advised "never waste a good crisis," he likely was thinking ahead to President Obama's economic stimulus program and health care plan. After swelling the federal deficit by passing the stimulus at a cost of nearly $1 trillion, Democrats in Congress signed off on Obamacare, with a price tag, according to Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., of $2.3 trillion in its first decade alone. With federal spending exploding at such a rate, it's no wonder that Moody's Investor Service recently warned that it would downgrade the U.S. government's credit rating if it concludes "the government was unable and/or unwilling to quickly reverse the deterioration it has incurred."

Argentine President Juan Peron frittered away his nation’s prosperity by introducing redistributionist economic and regulatory policies, nationalizing utilities and pumping up the national debt — all leading to three decades of instability and stagnation. (AP Photo, 1951)
What the United States government will do in the future may be in question, but we need not look far to find past examples of countries unwilling to get their finances in order. Consider Argentina. In 1914, it was one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and its living standard exceeded that of Western Europe until the late 1950s. Then President Juan Peron squandered his nation's prosperity by introducing a host of redistributionist economic and regulatory policies, nationalizing utilities and foreign investments, and pumping up the national debt. What followed was three decades of political instability, growing dependency, and economic stagnation.

There was a brief period of privatization and booming foreign investment in what the American Enterprise Institute's Mark Falcoff called Argentina's "go go" 1990s. But that was negated by the return of political leaders espousing Peronist principles who created a downward economic spiral by breaking contracts with foreign utility companies that had invested heavily in Argentina. Today, the country has lost its international credit standing and an estimated 10 percent of the population has moved abroad to escape the stifling taxes, regulation and inefficiency. To make matters worse, President Cristina Kirchner recently attracted attention for firing the president of the country's central bank. His sin was refusing to go along with her inflationary spending policies (Argentina's inflation is 17 percent) and challenging her demand that he hand over $6.6 billion in bank reserves.

Besides sending federal spending skyrocketing, Obama has, like so many of the politicians who ruined Argentina, dramatically increased government regulation of business, nationalized major sectors of the economy, and imposed a lengthy list of tax increases. America today is no more exempt from economic reality than Argentina was in years past. Make no mistake, these actions will eventually drain the life from this nation's economic vitality, just as they did in Argentina.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/United-States-of-Argentina-89551242.html#ixzz0jxmfSBuS

well-regulated militias are completely obsolete?

OpenID mhelie said...

The nature of warfare has changed to such an extent that well-regulated militias are completely obsolete. It used to be that all that was expected of a fighter was to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other guys like him and fire at the same time in coordinated volleys. That meant that every man had to be armed and every man had to be drilled regularly, thus "regulated". When it came to police duty, that was mostly handled with edged weapons, not firearms.

Today firearms are used only for personal protection, and even then only for limited personal protection. In today's war it is hidden bombs and traps that the big militaries of the world have trouble with. There is no amount of firearms that can protect someone from a nuclear-armed state with armored troops. So the second amendment has no real meaning. It should either say "ingenious bomb-making being necessary in the defense of the land, the right to tinker shall not be infringed" or "the protection of civil order relying on armed citizens, possession of personal arms shall not be infringed".

My point ultimately is that you can't rely on outdated laws to protect your rights in this day and age. You have to make new laws or just accept being an outlaw.

Hi Mhelie,

Well regulated means well equipped (guns, ammo, food, clothes)
You have the wrong impression and that's part of the brainwashing by the powers to be.

Truth is, on an open declared war, government vs citizens on American soil, the armed population will win all the time. Any strategist knows that.

Its impossible to defeat millions of armed citizens spread all over the country, on every branch of the government, already located at their homes. That was the purpose of the second Amendment. The government knows it so it steps carefully on this ground, the only choice is being sneaky about restricting liberties little by little. The 2A is as explicit as it gets, so that's a big problem for them.

"Today firearms are used only for personal protection"

So Mausers, Aks, FAL, ARs, Glocks, 1911s, those aren't used for warfare? WWII was fought with Garands and Mauser rifles you know?

"There is no amount of firearms that can protect someone from a nuclear-armed state with armored troops."

Said the guy that didn't realize that a handful of fanatics with box cutters could change the world as we know it.

You can't "nuke" a terrorist cell any more than you can "nuke" patriots, specially when the patriot lives on the next block and you dont even know it.


"My point ultimately is that you can't rely on outdated laws to protect your rights in this day and age. You have to make new laws or just accept being an outlaw."

Its not a law, its the acknowledgement of a right. Nothing is more prime and basic than the right of free speech and the right to defend yourself, both as an individual from any sort of bodily harm and as a population against tyrants.

It's the kind of thing you DONT change if you want a free country. It never gets outdated.
Yes, USA is a free country, if you don't think so go visit Venezuela or Cuba for a while, live there as they do for a few years, and regain the perspective you lost.

FerFAL

Reply: 2nd amendment video‏

Ferfal,

You have far more knowledge and understanding of our 2nd amendment than many in this nation do.  You are more American than many Americans are! Unfortunately, many Americans know more about the winners of American Idol than they do our Constitution, or our Founders, which is sad.  The domestic enemies of this nation did this by design.  They took over education, dumbed it down, and pretty much lobotomized generations of Americans.  Sadly, they have "radicalized" the 2nd amendment. "its outdated!" or "people don't need guns, thats why we have police" are common reasons why they try to encroach on that freedom.  In addition, the term "militia" has been radicalized and turned into a stigma during the Clinton years.  The leftist media have turned "militia" into a dirty word; they attached  "militia" to nutcases like the Oklahoma city bomber, the Unibomber, those gunmen who robbed a bank or banks in california with automatic weapons and so forth. 

Getting rid of the 2nd amendment seems to be one of the hardest Socialist staples for the leftists to obtain at this point.  Of all the lines they have crossed with the American people, that would be the most explosive.

A rifle behind every blade of grass, indeed.

JD

Thanks for your emial. Thank God the founding fathers clearly expected this to happen one day, that's why they made it abundantly clear.
Also, its no coincidence that its the 2nd Amendment, right after the most basic right of free speach. 



This pair itself contains the most basic rights people have. Express yourself freely and the ability to defend yourself physical against those that want to take away the first right. 
Every country grants the right to free speech in some pompous manner, no country has a problem with that. But its of little use if you don’t have the actual physical tool to fight oppression. Therefore, every country magnanimously acknowledges that right, but only USA does it for real supporting it with an amendments that gives the citizens power over the government by having a well armed society.


As you say, “militia” has been bastardized lately. In the old days it was simply a better armed neighborhood watch so to speak.
But you have to stay in the context and the meaning those words had back then.   “Well regulated” may now be interpreted as well controlled by the government, but the meaning of the word back then and in that context had nothing to do with that and meant, “well equipped, well armed”. Of course some people and politicians prefer to misinterpret these definitions. “Gay” use to mean happy person. Now it means something else. Same here.

Any person that is against the second amendment is simply against democracy, since it was specifically written to avoid tyranny. Or fight it if there’s no other option.
FerFAL