U.K. disarmament groups are also 'anti-body armor'

Our friends across the pond seem to be more than a little agitated about a new product that claims to be a "bullet proof hoodie" (never mind, for the moment, the dangerously naïve myth that anything a person can wear can be made "bullet proof," rather than bullet resistant).

Gun control groups have condemned a new “bullet-proof hoodie” which claims to protect against street violence.

The £300 Defender hoodie makes the wearer’s upper body invincible to every bullet up to a high velocity rifle, its makers claim.

Again, it's not really my purpose here to address the claim of making the wearer’s upper body invincible," or to point out my skepticism about the hoodie's ability to stop handgun cartridges like the .460 S&W Magnum--if someone else wants to test that, they're welcome to try. £300 ain't exactly cheap--about $600. More than enough to buy a decent defensive handgun . . . oops--I forgot--this is a defense-free zone we're talking about here.

Still, in the U.K., even something as purely defensive in nature as body armor is apparently considered excessively martial.

But gun control groups said today that the company was practising “exploitation at its most grotesque”. They predicted a rise in gang violence, saying children would buy the hoodie as a status symbol.

Raymond Stevenson, a spokesman for Don’t Trigger, an international anti-gun campaign based in Brixton, London, said: “It’s not helping kids to provide them with bullet-proof armoury. These companies are just encouraging the escalation of the urban warfare.

“It’ll give people the false impression that they’re protected and will encourage more aggressive behaviour.”

If "children" (especially urban children) can plunk down the equivalent of $600 for clothing, I can only assume that the British economy is doing a lot better than ours.

I tend to believe that the best protection against someone who intends to shoot you is to not allow him to live long enough to do it, rather than to try to interpose material between you and his gun that will (hopefully) slow the bullet down enough to keep you alive, but I acknowledge there are some cases in which something like this could be a real life saver.

Citizen disarmament groups in Britain, though, would prefer that this life saver not be available. One can perhaps justify a rabidly anti-gun position on pacifistic grounds, but when a person argues that it's wrong to sell something that only stops bullets, there is no disguising his wish to deny citizens any means of self-protection at all.

According to these groups, apparently, people are under a moral obligation to be perforated by any bullet that comes their way.