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Kevlar tactical vests, being essentially a ballistic, polymer weave, have a shelf life of only about 3-5 years or so before they lose their power to slow and stop bullets.

No they don't.

They are GIVEN a shelf life of 3-5 years based on lab tests interpreted in such a way that the continuous chain of procurement of such vests by the police and the military is maintained AND so the producers of said vests could cover their asses in court in case it's needed.
"See, your honor, evidence shows that the officer Smith exposed his vest to higher temperature and UV light than what is written on the label. Ergo, it is his fault that high velocity round our client's vest wasn't ever designed for, not to say that it isn't the greatest vest out there, wasn't stopped by the said vest which is still a perfectly safe vest if you buy it brand new every 3-5 years."

Back in reality, you'd need to either soak it in strong acid or expose it to direct UV for hundreds of hours for the fibers to lose a significant part of their tensile strength i.e. bullet stopping abilities.
450 hours of direct UV will degrade 4500 denier kevlar to ~65% and 1500 denier kevlar to ~35%.
900 hours will knock it further to ~48% and ~23%, respectfully.

Even then, that only means that the TOP LAYER is degraded. Kevlar is not transparent. It degrades because it absorbs UV light.
And that's IF it was worn on top of other clothes, without any kind of a liner or protective or decorative impregnation.
I.e. If police were running around in banana-yellow ponchos for protection from bullets.

It's in the specs and real-life tests by people who are re-selling USED police kevlar vests confirm it.

It's plastic. The stuff that will take millions of years to degrade out of the ecosystem.

Civilian-grade bullet-proof vests won't stop bullets fired from the primary weapons carried by military personnel.

ballocks

Ah...but when was the last time you saw someone wearing Level IV or higher armor in public who wasn't a cop or a soldier? I'm willing to bet the answer is "never," and that's because there's a difference between "available" in the technical sense and "available" in reality. And I can tell you up front what happens when a police officer sees someone armored that way...they confront the individual and grill them on the spot, because the wearing of armor of that nature is considered a major pre-incident indicator of a bad event. So, no...it's not really feasible for civilians to wear the same heavy multi-hit ceramic armor as soldiers wear.

Conversely, military-grade body armor will stop rounds fired by 99% of the weapons held by civilians.

Oddly enough, you can have all the same typical service issue ammo that the military uses.

Define "typical service issue ammo"? If you mean the +P 9mm rounds in their sidearms, yes, even though about 65% of civilian-owned 9mm firearms will not last long when firing that ammunition. If you mean steel core AP .223 and 7.68mm rounds, which is what's needed to penetrate the armor, then no. You need to either use AP rounds or very high caliber firearms (like .50 caliber) to have much luck against the aforementioned body armor used by the military. The fact that civilians can get standard ball ammo does not counter this.

The most heavily armored of civilian vehicles (and I do mean armored, as in cars that have been retrofitted, or the BMW models that can be bought pre-armored) would not stand up to military weaponry

...though neither do most military vehicles...

Military vehicles stand up a lot better than civilian ones. I'll put a lightly-armored humvee against a Buick any day of the week with regard to small arms fire. But these days what we're talking about are MRAPS and APCs, and if you think those are an equivalent to a civilian vehicle of any nature, you must seriously be smoking something. The point I am making is that military gear is significantly more defensible, not that it's invincible. And if these vehicles don't hold up better against military weaponry, why are we spending billions on them, and crediting them for saving thousands of lives?

while any armored military vehicle would shrug off an attack using weapons available to civilians

Except for IEDs, for which we are having to redesign our entire fleet basically.

Which are always made from repurposed military explosives and artillery. This only supports my point.

The day when civilians have the same capability to do harm that the military and intelligence communities do, things will go very, very badly.

Things have been going very, very badly for a long time. Companies like Coca-Cola and Nestle have their own military forces in third world countries. Corporatists have utterly taken over the majority of world governments. So while I agree with your premise, I don't agree with your conclusion. Civilians already have that capacity, and they always have, and things are already going that way.

Your definition of "badly" is a bit narrow. Go visit a country where the civilians actually have the same weapons as the military. Might I recommend Somalia as a sterling example?

Civilian-grade bullet-proof vests won't stop bullets fired from the primary weapons carried by military personnel.

ballocks

Conversely, military-grade body armor will stop rounds fired by 99% of the weapons held by civilians.

Oddly enough, you can have all the same typical service issue ammo that the military uses.

The most heavily armored of civilian vehicles (and I do mean armored, as in cars that have been retrofitted, or the BMW models that can be bought pre-armored) would not stand up to military weaponry

...though neither do most military vehicles...

while any armored military vehicle would shrug off an attack using weapons available to civilians

Except for IEDs, for which we are having to redesign our entire fleet basically.

The day when civilians have the same capability to do harm that the military and intelligence communities do, things will go very, very badly.

Things have been going very, very badly for a long time. Companies like Coca-Cola and Nestle have their own military forces in third world countries. Corporatists have utterly taken over the majority of world governments. So while I agree with your premise, I don't agree with your conclusion. Civilians already have that capacity, and they always have, and things are already going that way.

The "right to bear arms" has nothing to do with protecting the nation. The sole reason for that amendment was to guarantee the citizens the right to bear arms, so that a citizen's rebellion against an out-of-hand government would be a guaranteed option.

Isn't that the same thing as "protecting the nation"? "Nation" != "government".

But yes, the primary reason for the RKBA is to protect against tyrannical government, but that government isn't necessarily your own. The Colonists weren't fighting against their own colonial government, they were fighting against the British government, which was located on another continent. Technically, it was still "their" government, since they were British colonies after all, but it's still a government from a foreign place trying to impose itself upon you. I fail to see how it's much different from any arbitrary foreign power trying to take over your country. A war for independence really isn't very different from a war against an invading power. In both cases, you're fighting against an exterior power, not your own countrymen (as in a civil war), and this exterior power has sent its troops into your towns and cities to quash you.

The law here is slowly shifting in the other direction. Good example: bulletproof vests. Who's allowed to own them? Govt and police only.

I don't believe that's true. Here's a website that sells them over the internet to US residents.
http://www.bulletproofme.com/Quick_Answers.shtml

However, they don't sell to Connecticut because civilians there can only buy vests face-to-face, not through mail order, but that's the only exception they list. They do mention that some states like NY are considering making them illegal for civilians, but what do you expect from places like NY and CT? I'm surprised IL and NJ haven't already banned them. Anyway, as it stands now, you can get yourself the same ballistic vest police wear without any trouble in 49 states according to this site.

Besides, these vests are totally useless against rifle rounds (unless they have plates), and also shotgun slugs, so if you're considering an armed insurrection, make sure you bring your AR-15, or even a bolt-action hunting rifle.

Because you didn't provide any more info I will http://www.bulletproofme.com/Ballistic_Protection_Levels.shtml

I just wonder what my 7mm Mag would do to that. It's half again as big as a 30.06 casing and I've punched through a 3/4" hunk of cast iron from an old train wheel i found while out shooting a couple years ago.

Ah. Actually, 'the bulletproof ones' is a bit of a misnomer then. Level IIA *is* a bulletproof vest - they weren't wearing some weird knife-only vest. However, IIA is the minimum recommended spec for body armor. And I'm not saying that this was the case here, but here in the US, sometimes officers will choose to wear lower-rated armor because it's lighter and less obtrusive.

I think you might find the links below to be of interest:

http://www.bulletproofme.com/NIJ_Test_Rounds_CHART .shtml
http://www.bulletproofme.com/Ballistic_Protection_ Levels.shtml

Bear in mind that the III and IV ratings down below are for rifle plates, not soft body armor. Soft body armor will pretty much not stop rifle rounds, period. I can't find anything on the BBC about the actual round involved, either - if she was shot by a rifle, and not a handgun, no soft armor would've protected her.

Ah. Actually, 'the bulletproof ones' is a bit of a misnomer then. Level IIA *is* a bulletproof vest - they weren't wearing some weird knife-only vest. However, IIA is the minimum recommended spec for body armor. And I'm not saying that this was the case here, but here in the US, sometimes officers will choose to wear lower-rated armor because it's lighter and less obtrusive.

I think you might find the links below to be of interest:

http://www.bulletproofme.com/NIJ_Test_Rounds_CHART .shtml
http://www.bulletproofme.com/Ballistic_Protection_ Levels.shtml

Bear in mind that the III and IV ratings down below are for rifle plates, not soft body armor. Soft body armor will pretty much not stop rifle rounds, period. I can't find anything on the BBC about the actual round involved, either - if she was shot by a rifle, and not a handgun, no soft armor would've protected her.

Actually, no. Current ceramic rifle plate technology for human-worn body armor does not shatter when hit with a single round. See here.

http://bulletproofme.com/Quick_Answers.shtml#13
Though you did say "high-quality" but I can't find anything saying it's illegal.

Why, yes, I have: http://www.bulletproofme.com/PHOTO%20pages/Arm-Pro tectors.htm .

Nothing a sniper would shoot at. firing randomly into someone's crotch is a *stupid* sniper tactic. Snipers don't just shoot for the hell of it, they shoot to kill. Firing into the crotch area would only wound the enemy, even in a *best* case scenerio. It also alerts the enemy to the presence of the sniper, and thus the enemy can now take cover. This means the sniper just wasted his oppertunity to kill the target.

So protection for below the waist, while useful in general, is not really helpful for defense against snipers.

It's basically a Kevlar reinforced wetsuit with a hardened rubber overlay, some metal gauntlets, and presumably some chest plates and greaves (plate boots) as well. All science fiction aside, Kevlar genuinely does seem to be pretty amazing stuff, and if its properties are close to what Du Pont's site claims, then as the HSW article says, the Batsuit is essentially a specialised version of the Kevlar hazard suit which DuPont already sell...and hence, not implausible at all. The only element of it that really makes it seem fantastic is the cowl, and that probably only because of how it looks. Batman himself of course was going primarily for the intimidation factor with the cowl, but defensively speaking a more conventional Kevlar reinforced plate helm with noseguard would probably make more sense. If you look at some of the earlier or more rough concept sketches of several of these characters, the suits were less aesthetically appealing but made a lot more sense from a defensive point of view...As they tried to make the design more appealing aesthetically, it got less realistically useful. Spandex might *look* better, but it ain't bullet proof.

Also, while pricey, the material doesn't appear to be astronomically expensive. A full torso vest which a sales site claims to protect against rifle bullets is selling here for $400 US - Which as I said while not dirt cheap, still isn't Bruce Wayne only. Based on the prices I'm seeing, I'd guess you could have a basic (and functional) batsuit clone for probably $4000-$5000 US...although mind you, that's only in terms of the bullet proof element. Unless you've got a friendly neighbourhood blacksmith, the gauntlets could be harder to come by. A retractable hang-gliding setup built into the suit would probably also be very difficult to implement...but it might not be impossible...particularly if you were going to try and go wings only and forego the handlebar...of course, steering then becomes more or less impossible as well.

Anywayz, from what I'm reading here, it would be genuinely possible to create a basic but functional Batsuit semi-clone for under $10K US, if you were so inclined. I say a semi-clone because it wouldn't be identical visually, but it would make a lot more sense functionally. You wouldn't be flying with it, but it *would* give you limited ballistic protection, as well as a fairly impressive degree of chemical and thermal protection as well, not to mention protection from punches and bladed weapons with the gauntlets/helm/chest plates.

In terms of the heat/weight element that Bale is quoted complaining about, I'd attribute that primarily to the rubber, which to my mind only makes sense as part of the suit from a mainly visual point of view anyway. The armour elements would be heavy of course, but the entire point of the wetsuit is for temperature regulation, and from what I'm reading Kevlar (which I'm guessing they didn't actually use in the suit, since in a film of course it'd be primarily visual) is also supposed to be fairly light. If they'd gone for a more plausible and even less visual design, Bale might have been more comfortable than he was.

look at bullet proof vests. are they made of slabs of steel?

Read this, it could be useful for you: Data about vest classes

"but you can't (effectively) defend yourself against someone with a gun who wants you dead."

Oh is that a fact?
Really?

if somebody wants you dead they dont need a gun to do it, and you are wrong about being able to defend yourself against such things.

moron.

From the article

"The guns also aren?t one-shot kills. If they are, so would be the MP44 Sturmgewehr or AK-47 at shorter distances, which use similarly sized ammunition."

This idiotic fuck knows NOTHING about external or terminal ballistics. It's not only the SIZE of the bullet that makes it lethal, it's the amount of energy that the bullet delivers.

The MP44 Sturmgewehr fired 7.92x33mm Kurz ammunition, it pushed a 122 grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2,055 fps. The AK-47 fires 7.62x39mm ammunition, this pushes a 125 grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of approx 2130 fps. The .338 Lapua Magnum caliber can push a 200 grain
bullet to over 3200 fps.

Or if we were to consider the .338 Lapua at 250 grains, we get a muzzle velocity of 3000 fps.

Are you fucking high?

It's a heavier bullet (in one case twice the mass) at nearly 150% of the velocity of the two lesser calibers. There is no way under the sun that you can liken their lethality.

The two lesser calibers would bounce off of a target armored to level IV spec, but the .338 Lapua would slice through it like butter.

In short, Mr. Jakub, you don't know what in the fuck you're talking about.

I'm sick and tired of people who know nothing about ballistics pretending to be experts when they are trying to bolster a weak position.

Fine, he [whiney little bitch voice] doesn't like campers and snipers.[/whiney little bitch voice], he has the right to his opinion, but don't take this asshole's word for gospel, because that it ain't.

LK

Is this really true? I thought that rifle rounds actually cut through the kevlar (or other ballistic-resistant material) itself. Some bullet-resistant vests also do not protect against sharp-edged weapons.

Check this out, where even a handgun bullet can sometimes actually penetrate a kevlar vest, or here where there was penetration of several layers of kevlar.

Blunt-force trauma is another reason to use hard plates, but penetration is an issue as well, especially with rifle bullets.