User:Fluzwup/APHA

Armor piercing handgun ammunition, also variously called Teflon coated bullets, Teflon bullets, or, most commonly, cop killer bullets, are mostly mythical bullets whose alleged intent is solely to penetrate ballistic vests of the type often worn by police officers. The term was coined by an ABC news report in 1982, and rapidly became a top issue among gun control supporters in the United States, despite the fact that no police officer has ever been killed by a handgun bullet penetrating properly functioning soft body armor.

History

Development of the KTW bullet

In 1966, a group of law enforcement officials in Lorain County, Ohio, began experimenting with handgun ammunition intended to penetrate hard targets, such as brick walls and car doors, with the intent to sell the resulting ammunition to police departments. The group consisted of coroner Dr. Paul Kopsch, the coroner's special investigator, Donald Ward, and Lorain Police Sergeant Daniel Turcus, Jr., from whose last initials the name KTW was created. Since penetrating hard targets requires a bullet harder than the standard copper jacketed lead bullet, the KTW group experimented with various hard substances, such as case hardened steel. Use of a hard core required that the bullet be jacketed in a softer substance, one which could handle high temperatures of firing, and protect the bore of the gun barrel from damaging contact with the hard bullet material.

After years of testing, and selling small lots of ammunition, the KTW group had settled on a conical tipped, solid brass bullet with a coating of PTFE, a polymer commonly sold under the trade name of Teflon. The PTFE coating provided the necessary requirements to protect the bore of the gun from the hard, solid brass bullet, but in no way aided the bullet's penetrating ability. Polymer coatings were not new, as a nylon coated lead bullet had been and still is available under the trade name NyClad; in that case, the nylon was provided to reduce the amount of lead particles produced during firing, which can be a health risk. The ammunition was ready for the market, and in 1981 it was offered for sale solely to its intended market, police departments. The ammunition was solid by a new company that KTW formed, called North American Ordnance Corporation. The KTW ammunition was produced in .380 ACP, .38 Special, 9 x 19 mm, .357 Magnum, and .45 ACP.

"Cop killer bullets"

In Janary of 1982, NBC televised a program titled "Cop Killer Bullets", about the KTW ammunition, and it's ability to penetrate the ballistic vests which were increasingly being worn by police. Despite urging from police, and the fact that no KTW ammunition had ever been used in a crime, NBC rebroadcast the program six months later.

The result of this was a slow buildup of political pressure over the next two years. Mario Biaggi, Daniel Moynihan and Edward Kennedy put forth S. 555, in which Moynihan states that "the sole purpose of armor-piercing bullets is to kill police officers", and Kennedy claims that two officers have been killed by such bullets. Biaggi claims that there are eight different manufacturers making handgun cartridges capable of piercing the most popular police vest, and numerous police departments call for legislation to ban "cop killer bullets". The legislation proposed banning any ammunition capable of penetrating standard police armor (which was predominantly Level I and Level IIA at the time), when fired from a handgun, which would ban most rifle ammunition, which, even from a six inch barrel, will generate power far in excess of that the armor was designed to stop. The National Rifle Association objected to these proposed standards, an act which drove a wedge between the traditionally pro-police NRA and police organizations.

The NBC report and the arguments in Congress bring the "cop killer bullet" into the public awareness; "teflon coated bullets" appear in the movie Lethal Weapon III, shooting through the thick steel blade of a bulldozer, a feat that is patently impossible. By 1986, a ban on production and sale of armor piercing handgun ammunition, one based on bullet construction and approved by the NRA, is passed. This legislation restricted bullets with cores of hard materials, such as steel and brass, which included the KTW ammunition. It was later amended to include jacketed bullets with unusually thick jackets, such as the 9x19mm NATO M39B ammunition used by the United States military. The government purchase of the M39B ammunition was opposed by gun control proponents, but a compromise was reached wherein the ammunition in question would only be issued to troops in combat.

Despite the presence of the federal ban, state and local laws often expand on the ban. A law in Aurora, Colorado, for example, bans any ammunition coated or treated with Teflon or similar synthetic compound. The PTFE coating on the KTW ammunition was shown to be inconsequential to its ability to penetrate armor, so the ban is based on the "Teflon coated bullet" myth. What it does ban is any number of non armor piercing bullets with polymer coatings, of which there are a number on the market.

Police killings

Despite increases in the population and the number of police, the number of officers killed in the United States has been in decline for at least four decades. In 1978, 1 in 4,000 serving officers were killed in the line of duty; by 1988 that number had dropped to 1 in 6,000, and by 1988, 1 in 11,000. Some of this decline is attributable to the increased use by police of body armor, as well as improved training, communication, and better procedures.

Despite the name "bullet proof vest", modern body armor worn by police is far from "bullet proof". Early vests were only rated to stop low velocity handgun bullets; a survey in 1987 showed that most police vests were Level I and IIA, which are not rated to stop high velocity 9x19mm and .357 Magnum rounds. Modern police armor is typically rated Level II and IIIA; Level II will stop even high velocity .357 Magnum jacketed soft point bullets, while IIIA will stop the .44 Magnum and most other handgun bullets.

Body armor also provides only partial coverage of the officer. The FBI keeps statistics on crime in the United States, and since 1987 they have kept specific information on law enforcement officers killed wearing body armor. In the twenty year period from 1987 to 2006, only one officer was killed with a handgun bullet that penetrated the body armor; that case was caused by a failure of the body armor to stop standard 9mm bullets it was rated to stop. In the remaining 344 cases, 31 were killed with rifles that exceeded the capabilities of the vest, and the remaining were killed by shots that did not impact the bullet resistant panels of the vest. An earlier BATFE study showed no cases where an officer was killed by an armor piercing bullet, as defined by the law, penetrating the officer's body armor.

Despite the lack of documented officer deaths involving atypical handgun bullets penetrating police armor, the myth of the "cop killer bullet" is still used to political advantage. An example is provided by reporter and author Carl M. Cannon, who revealed that a "cop killer bullet" shooting repeatedly referred to by President Bill Clinton involved an officer killed by a normal 9x19mm bullet that did not impact the officer's vest at all.

United States federal definition of armor piercing ammunition

Under Title 18, UNITED STATES CODE, CHAPTER 44 as amended by Public Law 103-322 The Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (enacted September 13, 1994) 18 U.S.C. CHAPTER 44 § 921(a)(17)(B) the term 'armor piercing ammunition' means --

(i) a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or

(ii) a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.