I’d guess one of the most common reasons for owning and carrying a firearm is self-defense. If someone tries to break into your home or your car, you can shoot them. If someone starts shooting in the bar (or church or classroom) you’re at, you can shoot them, to save your life and the lives of others.

If you expect to find yourself in some place where getting shot seems like a real possibility, why not wear a bulletproof vest? For example, if I was going clubbing in a rough neighborhood, wouldn’t a good kevlar vest be more useful than a glock?

No good against a head-shot, granted. But I’ll bet the data would show those are more rare than taking one in the torso.

Would wearing a vest be less “manly” in some way? Would like to know what percentage of hand gun owners also have body armor of some kind.

Rolla is a medium/small town in central Missouri. I drove through it countless times during my affiliate relations days with Learfield. Just north of town is the municipal airport where, for as long as I can recall, a half-dozen vintage airplanes were parked near the runway. I was always curious but never stopped.

Today — for the first time in years — I drove past the airport and noticed most of the old planes had been moved built there was still one I could see from the highway so I stopped and asked if I could get a look at these magnificent machines. An airport employee said most of them had fallen into such disrepair they’d moved them to a remote corner of the airport and I couldn’t see these because I’d have to cross the runway and that was a no-no.

But one plane was still (barely) standing. My but how I would have loved to crawl through one of these. Imagining where they’d been and who had flown in them.