CEO Shoots Self to Test Bulletproof Jacket | Hacker News Reader

CEO Shoots Self to Test Bulletproof Jacket

range365.com

51 pointsduck52 comments

This is a very old gimmick, as old as the first light weight fiber based bodyvest invented in the 60s.

Richard Davis in 1975 was one of the first ones to do this stunt on a body vest. Check out the video here => https://youtu.be/IwBLL7Z3OvU?t=91

I do vaguely remember seeing someone put the Kevlar vest (invented in the 1960s) also to test in a similar manner i.e. by wearing it and getting shot, but I can't seem to find that video (maybe I had it wrong).

> Stephanie Kwolek, who died Wednesday at 90, was a DuPont Co. chemist who in 1965 invented Kevlar, the lightweight, stronger-than-steel fiber used in bulletproof vests and other body armor around the world.

> A pioneer as a woman in heavily male field, Kwolek made the breakthrough while working on specialty fibers at a DuPont laboratory in Wilmington. She developed a liquid crystalline solution that could be spun into exceptionally tough fibers, several times stronger by weight than steel.

Source: https://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2014/06/stephanie_kw...

It's much older than that.

The first bulletproof vest dates to the 1890s, and the inventor photographed tests on himself for publicity.

https://culture.pl/en/article/the-monk-who-stopped-bullets-w...

The practice is even older than that. Otis when demoing his elevator cut the only rope holding up the elevator platform, as far back as the mid-1800s.

The practice goes back to the 1600s, at least.

Google for “proof mark” relative to breast plate armor.

I guess that's one way to stand behind your products?

I question the size of the market for this kind of thing. You might wear one if you're paranoid or an undercover cop, but otherwise who, exactly, would wear this? If you're on a range, an actual vest isn't out of place, likewise for actual security or guard duty. If you feel the need to wear armor every day and can't openly wear a ballistic vest, you might want to consider moving.

> but otherwise who, exactly, would wear this?

I dunno, I could see it making sense for the people who went to that Bitcoin conference in Mexico. Or people traveling in unstable regions generally who want to blend in, but also don't want some basic protection against getting kidnapped or killed.

But a bulletproof vest doesn't really help you in most kidnapping scenarios, does it?

But I could see it being useful if you aren't the kidnapping target but others around you are - getting hit by a stray round seems like an unfortunate way to die.

Or having your car shot at. (With the caveat that my knowledge of kidnapping mostly comes from the Taken movies.)

If the clothing is functional, stylish, and priced right then why not?

You can think of them as being just another clothing company. If you had the option for your normal clothes to be bulletproof with no downsides, who would opt out.

I don't understand this logic. Of course if I could magically make the clothes I would already wear bulletproof with no downsides, I would. The downsides are that, compared to what I might have worn normally, this costs hundreds of dollar; limits me to only their products, aesthetically; has different breathability, size, and weight properties; and has different care requirements (or perhaps some subset of these things).

Edit: It might be a fine product with practical value to some people, I'm just addressing your post.

It's like, why do people wear a dive watch, or a high accuracy quartz watch. The clothes visually do fit a certain EDC aesthetic.

Couriers, close-protection staff, diplomats in high-risk areas.

> but otherwise who, exactly, would wear this?

Hunting or hiking in areas where hunters could be present. Obviously you'd want to wear it under some orange outerwear as your first precaution, but still.

> I guess that's one way to stand behind your products?

I wonder if that is where the idiom "stand behind" comes from...

>I question the size of the market for this kind of thing.

Once you get below a certain price point every low-level employee who has to handle a large amount of cash enters your target market.

They can branch out into "traditional" PPE if they really need to. Work clothing with reinforcement over key areas would be a big hit in some industries (at the right price of course).

>If you feel the need to wear armor every day and can't openly wear a ballistic vest, you might want to consider moving.

Your house doesn't almost catch fire every day yet you probably have smoke alarms. I can see a handgun proof polo shirt being quite popular among politicians on the campaign trail.

Heck, president-elect Bolsonaro got stabbed campaigning in Brazil.

I'm not sure if current presidents use bulletproof clothing.

I think this market will expand to encompass much of the luxury outerwear market - if you're spending $500+ on a jacket anyways, why not spend another $100 to make it bulletproof?

Seems like, as they have skus ~$300, that cost of effective bulletproofing has decreased drastically in the past decade or two.

The inventor who created the saw stop tested it on himself. The saw stop automatically stops a saw blade when you finger comes in contact with it. That guy definitely stood behind his product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop#Invented,_1999

If someone was going to the city to buy drugs I could see it. If you show up at a dealer with a normal bullet proof vest on they aren't going to be very accepting of you.

That's very common practice.

I've seen in a documentary that everyone who works at Miguel Caballero's bullet proof clothing company in Colombia has to be shot at least once while wearing one of his shirts or jackets. I tried to find the original docu but couldn't find it, but you can look up his company and check out the I was shot section on the company website.[1]

[1] https://miguelcaballero.com/en/i-was-shot/

Most competitive handgun shooters in the US load their own ammunition. Besides being cheaper and higher quality, it allows them to customize exactly the amount of gunpowder and weight of the bullet. In general, lighter loads are preferred because it creates less recoil, which lets you shoot faster in a competition. Because of this, each handgun shooting sports has a specified lower limit on how little power you can make your shot have, and competitors usually stay just a few percentage points above this.

So it's entirely possible to do this demo with considerably less force that would come from factory ammo.

Well, he said 124 grain. That's about 1200 ft/s, which is - in technical terminology - a goddamn fast bullet.

That's the weight of the bullet, not how much or what kind of powder, which both can make a world of difference.

You're 100% right -- I got mixed up. Thanks for the correction.

He specifically said it was a 124 grain +P round. +P rounds have well established pressure requirements, it's on page 9 here: https://saami.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Z299-3_ANSI-SAA... It's actually a higher velocity than a standard 9mm round, assuming he's actually telling the truth.

Wearable bulletproof jackets make much more sense to me than a handgun for practical defense.

I have lived in Oakland for the last 5 years, in nice areas. During that time:

- Brian Bore, a 30 year old data scientist was walking home from a bar just down the street from where I lived at the time, and was shot dead. They never caught the murderer. [1]

- A couple blocks away from my office in downtown Oakland, a woman was shot by a stay bullet during the day, [2] and teen's funeral was attacked and a 16-year old girl was killed. [3]

There have been other incidents as well, for which I do not have news sources: My S/O at the time was held up at gunpoint and his wallet and phone stolen. My morning coffee place had a mugging at gunpoint at 10 AM on Saturday morning (I arrived a half hour after it happened).

Our city is plagued by gun violence. It disturbs me greatly.

However, I don't think getting a gun myself makes sense. I have no problem with a gun for protection, but the kind of gun violence we face in this city is not the kind that is easily solved with a pistol. When someone has a gun trained on you and is trying to mug you, a gun of your own is not likely to help with that situation. If you're hit by a stray bullet, that's another situation that a gun of your own doesn't help with. And for just drive-by shootings, or whatever happened to Brian Bore, a gun of your own doesn't help at all.

A lightweight bulletproof jacket makes a LOT more sense.

Consider me an interested buyer. I wonder how light it is -- the jacket in the video looks pretty hefty.

1. https://abc7news.com/news/former-nasa-scientist-fatally-shot...

2. https://abc7news.com/news/innocent-bystander-hurt-in-oakland...

3. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Downtown-Oakland-rush...

I definitely agree. A gun on your person isn't going to stop the bullets you don't see. The robber or psycho will always have the drop on you. If you watch the Youtube channel "Active Self Protection", he goes over tons of scenarios caught on camera and a lot of them DO NOT end well even if the victim is armed. And THEN if the victim does manage to defend themselves they can end up dealing with legal issues afterwards even if they never fire their weapon. Even pulling a pistol is technically assault with a deadly weapon in most cities and if you don't follow the rules you can go to jail for a long time.

Definitely qualifies as a publicity stunt and seems to have worked.

Agreed. Takes some huevos to shoot oneself so I'm a believer haha.

Suddenly I have come to the realization that my CEO's job is easy.

This obviously worked as a fundraising stunt, but the technology is not new. I recall seeing other people doing this on TV and a few weeks ago some rapper did it on an Instagram live stream.

Whether it's a gimmick or not, the fact that there is a need/demand for such products is a scary one. People want to wear bullet proof fashionable clothing since they are not sure when they'll be shot at? It didn't matter how ugly bullet proof vests are since those who wore them didn't care how they looked, they just wanted to stay alive. This is really scary.

I've never tried to shoot anyone, but aren't most people aiming for the head? So the jacket is only a marginal improvement, which is still nice considering the stakes.

No because you will never hit a target that small. You always aim for the body.

Not particularly. You aim for the chest, as its a bigger target and easier to hit. And only aim for the head if that fails to stop them. At least that is what the Marine Corps teaches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozambique_Drill

They are not. The head is a small target. Most shooters are trained to aim for center mass, i.e. the torso.

I don't think so. Unless the target is very close it's not that easy to hit the head.

Standard initial training in most places are that train shooters is “shoot center of mass”; more advanced training is usually “shoot center of mass first, then...”.

Shooting other than center of mass drops likelihood of hitting a lot, and even most well-trained shooters aren't accurate enough to reliably hit anything else under conditions where you actually are going to be shooting in earnest.

No, you mostly aim at center of mass. Hitting someone with a gun is not easy even at short distances (stress, movement), so generally (and what is taught in shooting schools) is aiming at center of mass.

better avoid shooting them ribs...

Edit: Apparently I should have looked for more videos on youtube. The ones others have provided make me believe. Still think they should have rented a real high speed camera though.

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Mad props if he actually did this, but a bit skeptical here. I see no evidence there was an actual live round in there. It could well have been a blank. On the other video further down the page they remove the magazine and show the round, and there is visible damage to the clothes they shoot. I see no visible damage, and he didn't bother to recover the round as in other video either. If I were pulling this stunt I would certainly have a high speed camera to show it in action. Other thing I noticed is there is a muzzle flash on the full speed and then when they slow it down there is not? Could be an odd artifact, but could also be added?

Slower:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkpWJuSvd7A

A hole does appear in the outer jacket

> Mad props if he actually did this, but a bit skeptical here

Skeptical of what? Bulletproof vests do stop bullets, there is no crazy claim here.

There are many special forces training videos on YouTube where they do get shot in the bullet proof vest with live ammo. See 0:45:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj2dOioMoBE

At the time I was skeptical that he actually shot himself. Not that bulletproof vests stop bullets in general. That is obviously true. The additional videos others provided have shown more evidence which was not visible in the video in the article.

From the youtube comments:

Two different cameras at two different frame rates, both at 180* shutter angle. The main camera was at 24fps and the "high speed" was only 120fps. You've got a very long exposure with the slower camera, less chance to miss the muzzle flash and it's bled over one big frame. The muzzle flash was simply between frames on the high speed. You can find the same thing happening on videos all over, including our other testing videos on ballistic clay and gelatin

Raw straight out of the camera in 4K with no cuts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bShWhdzEZ8 The damage: https://youtu.be/f_Y8rXMb1qs Brighter and slower slow-mo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkpWJuSvd7A Show less

I briefly skimmed some of the comments before posting, but did not see that one. That makes perfect sense, thanks.

My experience with body armor is based on equipment from the 1990s so take this for what it's worth.

While the bullet may not penetrate the cloth, it often results in broken ribs and a great amount of bruising underneath. Damage to liver, spleen, lungs and heart is also possible due to the shock of impact -- that energy has to go somewhere. So even if it doesn't penetrate, you might still die. Very large handgun rounds may deform the inner surface of the vest into a cupped shape. Rifle rounds travel at much, much higher velocity and carry so much energy that they usually punch right through. That's why a plate carrier is needed to protect the heart from rifle rounds.

it's basically the same trauma as being hit in the ribs with a sledge hammer or a baseball bat, swung at full speed. You'll likely survive, but you'll almost certainly likely be injured to one degree or another. In short, it won't be pleasant.

Yeah, I can imagine there would be a lot of possible damage based upon the blunt force trauma. I guess they picked a spot that was least likely to do lasting internal damage?

Rifle rounds pack a whole lot more power than 9mm, the flip side is that 9mm is very common. One of the original inventors of the second chance vests shot himself with a .357 point blank in front of an audience and walked away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwBLL7Z3OvU

> Mad props if he actually did this, but a bit skeptical here.

I understand neither the "mad props" nor the skepticism. Why is it hard to believe that the CEO of a company that makes body armor would trust their body armor to perform to its specifications?

> I see no evidence there was an actual live round in there. It could well have been a blank. On the other video further down the page they remove the magazine and show the round, and there is visible damage to the clothes they shoot. I see no visible damage, and he didn't bother to recover the round as in other video either. If I were pulling this stunt I would certainly have a high speed camera to show it in action.

They show the recovered round and the giant bruise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_Y8rXMb1qs

And there is clearly visible damage recorded on the slo-mo video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkpWJuSvd7A

I agree that they should have rented a high-speed camera for this ridiculousness, though.

> Other thing I noticed is there is a muzzle flash on the full speed and then when they slow it down there is not? Could be an odd artifact, but could also be added?

It's two different cameras. One of them captured the muzzle flash. One didn't. It's possible that they added it to one but not the other but that seems less likely than one just not capturing it.

I don't know why you propose blanks but then assume the muzzle flash is fake, as if blanks don't create a muzzle flash.

I did not look for additional videos, my comment was based on just the video in the article. That slow-mo video shows more than the one in the article, and makes me a believer.

I also was just asking about the flash not appearing in one video. Not attempting to say a blank would have no flash. Two different cameras makes perfect sense, but they didn't actually say what was happening in the video. I thought they had just slowed down

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