Body Armor

I just bought a Shellback Tactical Banshee Elite 2.0 Set with 1155 Lvl IV ceramic plates. They are warranted for 10 years and the vest has a lifetime warranty. 4-6 weeks for delivery. $460.00 after taxes. Free shipping.

The entire baby car seats expiration date raises so many questions. I am most skeptical when it comes to this government regulation. Where is the data supporting these requirements?

On that matter, if you blindly trust these requirements, one should seriously question something nearly everyone takes for granted, namely the safety (or lack thereof) of cell phones (4G, 5G) to the human body. There has actually been zero testing on living humans in regards to any potential dangers cell phones pose. And yet, nearly everyone blindly puts cell phones next to their most vulnerable body parts, specifically their genitals, heart, brain, without considering hmm… don’t cell phones emit certain levels of radiation?

Also, ever wonder just how safe the airport fully body machines are?

What are your thoughts?

I dont know anything about car seats… some gubment regulations are very much helpful, some aren’t (see CA notice about lead & cancer on everything). I don’t know where baby seats fall on that scale.

The body armor expiration isn’t one of those things I see questioned much (maybe I’m not looking in the right places), and I don’t think it is gubment but rather manufacturer warranty. It isn’t that on day 1,824 it totally works and on day 1,825 it is swiss cheese. But the materials (plastic or ceramic) must degrade over time and they reach some point where they no longer stop what they are rated to. 5 years (or w/e) must be close to a point where the degradation kicks in enough where the manufacturer doesn’t want to warranty it anymore.

Cell phones definitely give off a lot of radiation (not all radiation is bad), and some phones more than other. Some people are more sensitive to it than others, it’s called ā€œelectromagnetic hypersensitivityā€, my wife is one of them. When buying a new phone she will literally each one up to her head and see which one bothers the least :smiley: You can actually buy at amazon EMF detectors or EMF meters.

On the TSA scanners, they actually removed all of the original prototypes from the early adopter airports. I want to say they had gone out to 40 or 50 airports, so a significant taxpayer expense to roll them out and to recall them. Folks may remember the discussion around them as ā€œGubment: dont worry its the same amount of radiation you get when flying at 30k feetā€ versus ā€œScientist: Yes, but you get ALL of that radiation in 0.5s instead of spread over a 2-3hour flightā€. Supposedly, the new ones in airports now are safer… I avoid flying anyway.

The body armor manufacturers are covering their bases. If you treat your gear well, it will last longer. If you leave it in the back of your vehicle during the summer it will degrade more rapidly. Ceramic is more prone to degradation when dropped multiple times. Alloyed steel is more stable but does undergo molecular realignment. The anti-spalling coatings on steel plates are what I would be most concerned about.

What is your intended use case for body armor? If you wear it frequently, you will want to swap your plates out for something lighter after awhile. Chiropractors and back surgeries aren’t cheap. Been there, done that and got the stiches to prove it…

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honestly, this is for pretty much a lot of SHTF and made a really bad mess. The odds are pretty high this will sit in a closet never used by me.

That’s why steel based armor appeals to me. The cost is (generally) lower so i dont feel bad about spending it for something that will see little to no use. And if 10, 20 years from now SHTF I am confident I can pick it up and it still works as intended.

On the other hand… if I do need to wear it, do i really want to carry 3-4X the weight? I’m not 18yrs old anymore. Maybe replacing the plates every 5-10yrs just needs to be part of the budget that comes from general preparedness.

Decisions, decisions…

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Of those armor vests I reviewed, I also chose a Safelife Defense brand. Of course budget dictates my options, limitations. Risk level: where I live, recreate, where I work, and the hours I have to keep, influenced my decision, and use. If I can find work elsewhere, I’d move. Almost finished with college. I’m in a large metro area; This week, a man in my local community was shot during a car jacking, he’s hospitalized, but expected to go home. One person’s view, glad I purchased one size up, so that it fit. Some sellers might offer returns and exchanges, but read their fine print first.

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