Bulletproof backpacks are the hot new accessory of this back-to-school season, as terrified parents try to keep their kids safe from the next school shooting. Sales are up more than 200% and almost half of adults say they’d buy their kid a bulletproof backpack. There’s a small problem, though: A bulletproof backpack isn't going to save your kid's life.
It’s not just that your kid might be shot in the head or the stomach rather than the back. It’s not just that they might not be wearing their backpack when the shooter storms into their school. Bulletproof backpacks aren’t designed to withstand shots from the kind of military-style rifles favored by and easily accessible to mass shooters in the U.S.
These backpacks are designed to stop handgun fire, but an AR-15 is an entirely different thing. “Rifle projectiles present a threat level greater than handgun and even shotgun ammunition,” Peter Diaczuk, professor of forensics at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told NBC News. “This is due to the higher velocity and consequently greater kinetic energy of a rifle bullet.”
It turns out that protecting kids from mass shootings isn’t as simple as heading down to the big box store, dropping a couple hundred bucks, and hoping that your kid is wearing their backpack at the critical moment. It’s still going to take policy solutions.