Definite Darwin Award winner in the making
Next up, they'll be testing fall arrest harnesses, snake bite anti-venom and reserve parachutes
You have in your possession a bulletproof vest, a firearm, and some beer. As the brews weave their magic, of course you have to make sure the armour works. Right? It sounds like the setting for a Jackass stunt, but cops claim two Arkansas, US blokes did just that while drinking on their deck. The pair – 50-year-old Charles …
Humanitarian society? I don't see it...
We limiting access to guns but instead its knife crime we have to worry about...
If we were a humanitarian society we would be dealing with the issues that cause the violence.
The police and CPS are a joke, they are only interested in conviction rates, not helping victims of crime or crime prevention. I used to trust the police, after experiencing how flawed the system is (as a victim) I certainly would think twice before calling them for help.
There's a couple of movies where people gamble by taking shots. One is based on a dual and speed, the other that I remember they had different odds/payouts based on the caliber of the round and if they could still get up.
So this isn't new.
As to the vest... they don't say what type.
And there are several different .22 rounds. Lets assume .22lr.
If you get hit in the right area, you can actually die from a .22lr (e.g. back of the skull, or pericardium)
If the vest was Kevlar, two shots in the same area, depending on the size of the caliber and round, the vest could fail.
And yes it would leave a welt.
Less Darwin but more idiot redneck.
Yep. When I was shooting rifles as a kid at the rage, we used the .22lr.
Sometimes one would drop the heavy rifle out of the stand onto the shooting bench in front of us and it would go off. The bullet from that misfire could easily blow through the 50 mm (2") of low oak-board walling installed at 25 meters and smash the fluorescent lighting for the targets.
I.O.W: That round sounds and feels wimpy when fired from a rifle but it is not a joke, it will kill someone easily enough.
.22"LR has approx 140 Joules muzzle energy.
In a "real world" context that's similar energy to a 10lb bowling ball dropped from a first floor window. Added to which it is concentrated to a point as sharp as a dog's tooth and spinning like a food blender. BPV or no, I don't want to be downrange of that if I can possibly help it, thanks.
Next up, they'll be testing fall arrest harnesses, snake bite anti-venom and reserve parachutes
Ok, perhaps they're not the sharpest tools in the box, but full marks for effort: Things like this are why I love that rednecks exist. Have a beer on me chaps... best lunchtime laugh I've had all week.
Well, obviously you have to have multiple tests, with the conditions as similar as possible, so you'll need a bunch of drunken mates around the same size, and a number of new, undamaged vests.
Then you need a control group to test if it was actually the vest that stopped the bullet.
It is important to note of course that in the picture in question, the bulletproof vest wasn't getting tested.
They had tested the vests extensively and so were certain that they would work. The people they were trying to sell them to however were unconvinced, so they decided to have a very convincing demonstration.
Almost certainly that's from a sales demonstration. That kind of thing happens when selling safety.
For comparison, the JCB demonstration staff often perform crazy stunts in diggers. This goes back to Joe Cyril Bamford himself having arranged for several to lift themselves up with their rear shovels and then driving his car underneath them.
Using the equipment available, I would put the beer cans in the vest, put the vest against a thick mud bank and then shoot it, whilst making sure my mate was stood behind me.
I'd expect the beer cans to be burst, but you should be able to discern if one has been punctured.
Either wrap it around a big chunk of ballistics gel, or failing that, just use a dead pig or something.
Oh, and probably best not to mix alcohol and firearms, but hey, just think of it as evolution in action.
Of course, once you've shot it, it's now useless, so you're going to have to buy a new one.
Why shooting estates also give you shit-tons of alcohol then?
Well, it's why shooting estates have a stone-cold-sober loader/ghillie behind each "gun" keeping them in their arc and making sure they don't do anything silly (whether down to drink or plain negligence).
>You aim for the head
There used to be an ad for shop safety glasses with a shotgun fired at a polystyrene manikin head wearing the safety glasses - obviously turned to dust except for the eyes.
Seemed like an obvious flaw if the accident still took the rest of your head off.
IIRC, a guy won a Darwin Award some time ago by getting his mate to test a bulletproof vest on him... with a knife.
Yep, there it is:
https://www.think.cz/en/67-culture/266-what-a-year-it-was-the-1999-darwin-award-winners
And a few years later, another guy did it all by himself:
https://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2006-10.html
(Actually Google returns a depressingly high number of similar incidents)
at least he didn't toss gunpowder into a BBQ and light it (repeatedly) until, the final time, a heated coal remained and sparked the powder while dumping it into the BBQ, blowing up into the face of one of the 2 men, and severely burning the other. Yeah, this really happened, from what I've read. And considering that one of them was (quite possibly) a competent engineer at a well known software company (or perhaps both of them), it doesn't take Arkansas or Hillbillies to win a Darwin award...
(And I don't know if alcohol was involved, but it probably was)
My favourite is the guy who got his wife to shoot him with a Desert Eagle, while he held an encyclopedia.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43410816
Sadly, he doesn't qualify for a Darwin on account of having already bred.
The article says they were arrested "on suspicion of aggravated assault". However, if they both consented, was such an offence actually committed (other than against common sense)?
Of course, there may well be other statutes that they have violated, but then that's what they should be arrested for...
Maybe the cops felt they had to put an end to this and came up with this reason for lack of a better one. And it still makes sense to speak of "suspicion of aggravated assault": when you encounter someone with multiple bullet shots in their vest, you wouldn't expect that they put themselves voluntarily in this situation.
They could have charged them with mopery.
It is a vague, informal name for minor offences and has occasionally been put into use by police as a charge to bring when no other legitimate charge seems appropriate at the time.
Used to be used on vagrants as a sort of get out of town hint.
In the case of the Spanner Trials (albeit in the UK), the cops claimed they had no choice, since the law did not provide a mechanism by which someone could consent to assault. The offence was complete and absolute.
Given that the basis/structure of US law is largely cribbed from British (Constitution & BoR borrowing from Magna Carta, etc), it's quite probable that in the same way the British Government never bothered to exempt a defence of "I consented to being assaulted", the US Gov and Arksansas State Legislatures probably haven't either.
That being said - even if they have, assault is probably an easy charge under the "Ways and Means Act" that they could use to make timely arrests pending interview and leafing through the book to see what other (more relevant) charges might better suit.
"Pity they were white"
I don't know, The US police seem to manage OK when there's an unarmed white Australian girl in her jim jams calling for help.
Sorry, downvote on that one. According to FBI statistics on police shootings, Caucasians are shot in greater numbers and percentages than those "of color" by law enforcement. Those just don't make international news. I am going to attract my very own downvotes by adding; "Unarmed" is a finding after the fact. If somebody the police are involved with won't show their hands, keeps fishing around their waistband or back, depending on situation, waiting until they show a weapon is a recipe for the cop to get injured or killed.
"since the law did not provide a mechanism by which someone could consent to assault"
Well, not for homosexual acts. IIRC it was the ABH rather than the assault that you couldn't consent to.
The Spanner case involved gay BDSM, and started with the cops finding evidence that they believed showed people being tortured and killed. But the victims turned out to be alive, and had consented.
In the linked wiki it even mentions the various cases where straight BDSM of the identical acts (branding) in the Spanner case have been considered to be legal if consent is given.
They also charged the male victims of the assault, whereas the female victims weren't.
"At least these bozos allegedly only used a .22 rather than something more potent which could have penetrated the thing. These vests are only really intended to stop low-energy pistol shots, not high-velocity rifle ammunition."
Cue the calibre vs lethality debate. Shooting at someone with any firearm is dangerous.
only? Don´t -> DON´T <- bloody underestimate a fucking .22LR, these little bastards have almost as much energy as a 9x19para (given their smaller projectile, they are probably even more penetrating) and are definitly more powerful than a .38
And this is before we talk about energy transfer *through* the vest...
>bloody underestimate a fucking .22LR, these little bastards have almost as much energy as a 9x19para
If you define "almost" as "60% at best when comparing an upper end .22LR fired from a rifle to a lower end 9x19para fired from a handgun when measured in joules"
Look, I don't want to get shot be either but if you had to be shot by one I'm preferring the odds of surviving a .22LR.
Doubtful that it was an AR15 style rifle. They're typically chambered for 0.223 (same external dimensions as 5.56 NATO) rounds (up to about 29 grains of powder) whereas a .22 is shorthand for .22LR cartridge (up to 2 grains of powder). That said, there are some modified AR15s chambered for .22LR for silent or cheaper target practice. The energy of .22LR from a rifle (10" barrel) is about 60% more than that from a handgun (3" barrel).
The one time I used freshly felled pine as a bullet back stop for target practice using .22lr the projectiles penetrated 55-60 cm into the fresh pine wood.
That was a single-shot .22lr rifle with something like a barrel length of 50 cm - 60 cm from 50 m away from target.
Makes you think.
FWIW, it's spelt spelled naïve, which is exactly what that sort of comment is...
"Spelt" is a perfectly valid alternative spelling of "spelled" in most of the world except North America (and even then I'm not sure about Canada).
See, for example, grammarly.
... the vest actually worked. Didn't expect that against even a small rifle at close range.
The vest is going to be specced to make shots from a 9x19 or .38Special survivable (though it's not going to stop them hurting!).
.22lr - whether from a rifle or pistol is barely going to hit 50-60% of the muzzle energy of centre-fire pistol rounds. .22lr should not be underestimated, but by the same token a vest which can be penetrated by .22lr has no real business calling itself "bullet proof", because all that's really left below .22lr is .22short.
And if you're relying on your attacker using an archaic round like .22short, then you're in trouble!
Yes, the vest worked. Years ago there was a "news bloopers" reel that featured a TV reporter who wanted to demonstrate the efficacy of the then-new police bullet-proof vests. On live camera, he had an officer shoot him in the sternum with a .22 pistol while wearing the vest. The next minute or so was him prancing about in pain, uttering bleeped profanities, while a dozen cops laughed their asses off.
There's also a YouTube video of some young rednecks testing the efficacy of a vest vs a 9mm pistol. Yes, the idiot wearing the vest survived just fine. The bullet deformed the Kevlar, and made at least a 1/2-inch deep wound on his chest. It didn't penetrate his rib cage, but he was certainly bleeding, and his friends hauled him to the ER. ("I fee fine," he said. Yes, he actually said that.)
At least they managed to shoot the vest. Bullet proof vests (a misnomer if ever there was one) only cover bits of you. Get the shot wrong and you hit something more vital like a head or a leg artery, or maybe side on where the vest doesn't cover.
And that's before you see the damage a tumbling bullet can do.
Just for fun:
A certain amount of drunkeness might actually help here, by spreading the grouping of the multiple shots. At this sort of point blank range, using a rifle, a sober shooter of modest ability could probably put all five one on top of another.
That would very likely achieve penetration.
Spoiler: it didn't work.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/12/20/he-thought-a-book-would-stop-a-bullet-now-his-girlfriend-is-going-to-jail-for-killing-him/?utm_term=.25e62b5add53
To give them some small amount of credit, they did allegedly test the theory on another book, but equally, they used a Desert Eagle .50-caliber pistol and it doesn't take much clickity to find videos of the bullets from these things merrily smashing bricks into powder...
(and yes: different materials, yadda yadda. Still dumb. Don't try this at home, kids...)
As I recall, a passage The Unix-Hater's Guide, established that the O'Reilly book on sendmail would stop a pellet from an air pistol. The message indicated that the writer would try a .22 on the weekend, but I don't there was an update.
Okay, I'm lucky enough not to have ever found this out first hand, but doesn't shooting a bullet 'proof' vest ruin the vest, at least at the point of impact and maybe the surrounding area?
I mean, great, this not inexpensive piece of kit would have saved you had you been accidentally shot while out hunting or whatever. Not now, though. But at least you'll have confidence in the next one you buy.
I also don't get why, if you absolutely have to test it, you have to put a human being inside it. A watermelon would do nicely. But that's been covered above.
"I also don't get why, if you absolutely have to test it, you have to put a human being inside it. A watermelon would do nicely. But that's been covered above."
Considering the implications that these things are not cheap, I'm just wondering what sort of warped world these guys live in where they feel the need to buy one in the first place.
Or a car proof vest? https://visionzerolondon.wordpress.com/latest-pedestrians-and-cyclists-deaths-in-london/
(Over 8 million people live in London, deaths are tragic and we must get knife crime under control, but don't let the news cycle fool you into thinking it's a war zone.)
The BBC TV programme, Tomorrow's World, once featured a demonstration of a bulletproof vest where it's inventor wore it while being fired at by an accomplice, under the bemused gaze of presenter (and ex fighter pilot) Raymond Baxter.
No-one was drunk and there wasn't a banjo in sight.
The accomplice was presumably a trained marksman*, wasn't using a semi-automatic and the inventor had signed a waiver.
* In America this can be done while having a burger, because "Burgers and Bullets" is a real company and who cares if 9-year olds shoot people when given automatic rifles?
My sister went to visit the gun range where the 9 year old went on a killing spree the week after it happened.
My thinking was that if there is a best time to go to a place like that, it's immediately after some kid kills loads of people. Everybody is going to be extra careful.
As I understand it and Google backed it up... both "proof" and "resistant" are interchangeable. The reality is, none of the vests are bullet proof.
Ref: https://www.tssbulletproof.com/blog/bulletproof-or-bullet-resistant/ and here: https://www.tssbulletproof.com/blog/bulletproof-or-bullet-resistant/
"We're so inbred, even the pharaohs are sayin'" oh, hell no!""
Or
"Quick, someone go find the 50-cal"
Im imagining something of a Bert Gummer character, just without the brains or the looks. Could have been worse for the wife, they might have decided to go with a Soreass Hill re-enactment. "But when I look at him, all I see is him getting rammed on the porch..."
Consent, even if it can be demonstrated, does not mean something isn't a crime. For an example, consider statutory rape of minors. But also, what would have happened if things had gone wrong and the demonstration had led to severe injuries or death?
The police were called out and had a duty to enforce the law as they see it. Note, just that they've been charged doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a trial.
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Oy! Russians never tell anyone, especially other Russians, to hold their vodka. In the first place, they tend to drink the entire bottle at one gulp. In the second place, they're afraid that whoever holds it will drink the entire bottle at one gulp and they'll never get their vodka back.
What color is the sky on your planet? The .22 is nowhere in the neighborhood of "high velocity". You can also get .22 short and .22 long rifle cartridges both of which can be fired from pistols. Then, of course, there are a multitude of rifles capable of firing 9mm, .357/.44 magnum, and .45 ACP rounds and pistols capable of firing .223/5.56NATO and .308. Your "firearms expert" needs some retraining.
Now, these jackasses should have eliminated themselves from the gene pool with this stunt. Now listen well, kiddies. Rule #3; firearms and alcohol, in any combination, do not mix.
"Now, these jackasses should have eliminated themselves from the gene pool with this stunt."
Welll, the wife doesn't seem like she's too happy so he's probably not getting any for a while. It may also be the final straw for the divorce filing and with a reputation for putting on a bulletproof vest and letting his buddy shot at him, chances may not be good that he'll get another date in that area that isn't paid for in advance and by the hour.