Although police officers in most countries are issued bulletproof vests, they don't necessarily wear them at all times - would you want to heave one of those things around for an entire shift? What they do often carry, however, are clipboards. Taking the "every little bit helps" approach, Ohio's IMPACT Armor Technologies has put two and two together, and come up with something that should actually offer some protection - a Ballistic Clipboard.
Besides holding arrest warrants, speeding tickets and other cop-type papers, the clipboard is also capable of stopping bullets. It reportedly "provides multi-hit protection against 9 mm, .357, .40, and .44 mag rounds" at up to point blank range, in hot or cold temperatures. It is also said to protect against knives and blunt weapons. Unlike a vest, however, it weighs less than two pounds (907 grams).
While some people might picture an officer desperately trying trying to hide their entire body behind a clipboard, it presumably isn't intended to work that way. More likely, in situations where an assailant fires wildly at an officer's chest, there would actually be a pretty good chance of their bullet striking the clipboard instead.
It's apparently not that wacky of an idea, as IMPACT first designed the device in response to a request from local law enforcement personnel. Additionally, the company is not the only one offering such a product. Although the somewhat riot shield-like design of IMPACT's clipboard is unique, more ordinary-looking bulletproof clipboards are available from several other manufacturers.
The Ballistic Clipboard can be purchased via the IMPACT website, for US$150.
The video below contains more information on the product.
Source: OhGizmo!
Remember the more legally owned guns in an area the lower the crime rate including \"gun crimes\".
Hey! Great slogan! Now, let\'s take a look at something more than dogma and propaganda, shall we:
Statistics, like science facts, don\'t lie!
The following table begs to differ with your assertion... considerably!
Released by the National Institute of Health (NIH), this table reveals, in fact, that from 1988 to 1997, states with the greatest gun ownership had anywhere from THREE to SEVEN TIMES as many homicides BY GUN across ALL age ranges and categories listed than states with the lowest gun ownership.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447364/table/t3/ Homicide Deaths in States With the Highest vs the Lowest Average Gun Ownership Prevalence Index, 1988 - 1997
The following page shows that the stats between 1998 and 2002 reveal much the same:
http://books.google.com/books?id=_6kJWGgXi4wC&pg=PA240&lpg=PA240&dq=%E2%80%94Homicide+Deaths+in+States+With+the+Highest+vs+the+Lowest+Average+Gun+Ownership+Prevalence+Index,&source=bl&ots=95bcKgvLmY&sig=hc19YlxLIPcid2YRD2GDf-ZW-kg&hl=en&ei=WfG6Tp-wCsLOgAfd0LHgCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false Private Guns, Public Health By David Hemenway (Data gathered from the CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Survey)
If you would like to conduct further analysis of the data for these and later years up to 2010, here is a link to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) data sets from which these other analyses were made:
http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/index.htm CDC Behavioral Risk Factors Survey (includes years 1984 thru 2010)
Remember...
Statements based on real facts and stats bolster an argument.
Statements given without evidence and proven to be false reveal an agenda and disingenuous intent.
You know, the term gun crime is really silly. Its already a crime to try and kill a cop, no matter if you do it with a gun, knife, or a vehicle. I dont see why any of them should get more preference in stats, because, if you are enough of a scumbag to try and kill a cop, then who cares what you are trying to do it with?
from http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/cocrime.htm
Year Population Index Violent Property Murder Rape* Robbery assault# 2002 4,501,051 195,936 15,882 180,054 179 2,066 3,579 10,058 2003 4,547,633 197,449 15,757 179,709 185 1,913 3,738 9,921 2004 4,601,259 197,441 17,121 180,322 201 1,945 3,739 11,236 2005 4,663,295 206,947 18,498 188,449 173 2,026 3,94 12,351 2006 4,753,377 182,660 18,616 164,054 158 2,076 3,835 12,547 2007 4,861,515 163,047 16,906 146,141 153 1,998 3,453 11,302 2008 4,935,213 158,236 17,129 141,107 156 2,094 3,369 11,510 2009 5,024,748 151,218 17,022 134,196 159 2,269 3,371 11,223 2010 5,029,196 151,125 16,133 134, 992 120 2,198 3,132 10,683 2011 unavailable *Forcible Rape #Aggravated Assault Please Forgive my not taking numbers from the CDC seriously. If someone ate an eighth of a bowl of potato salad that made the other seven people who ate of it sick with salmonella and becomes sick with salmonella but also admits that he ate a raw egg his case of salmonella will be recorded by the CDC as being caused by the raw egg not the potato salad that sickened the other seven people. This is usually called Political Tampering with the numbers. .