I don't know the general depth of knowledge of ISF members in the subject matter, but the debate over body armor/ammunition that can penetrate same, goes back to the 1920's in the U.S. with manufacturers trying different designs of "bullet-proof" vests and the commercial manufacturers of ammunition coming out with different types of projectiles in standard rifle and handgun cartridges to penetrate the vests.
In the beginning you're looking at nothing more than iron or steel plate cut into various sizes stuffed into canvas carriers hung over a person like a sandwich board, and the projos were in the main nothing more than jacketed "pointed" versions of what would normally be a round nose lead projo.
It's my understanding that both city cops and feds pretty much had to be ordered to wear the BA under threat of disciplinary action because the vests were so heavy and awkward that the general feeling was they were more hindrance than help - I've examined some of the old designs and my opinion is they'd be put to better use in weighing down bodies for water disposal than as officer safety gear.
Later on most departments and agencies retired the old style vests, but the idea never went away. Post WWII there wasn't much advancement, but during and after the Korean war some development of Flak jackets and vests using laminated nylon panels came around, and the idea took off through Vietnam, with some limited law enforcement adoption for warrant squad members etc, but the gear still wasn't up to protecting against actual standard service rifle caliber (non-AP) hits, but did provide protection against some lesser handgun calibers, shotgun pellets up to 00 buck and high velocity small metal fragments.
Similarly, there wasn't much development in armor piercing ammunition outside of HE shaped charge anti-tank applications, with most service rifle calibers on both sides of the Iron Curtain having steel core variations, not intended as anti personnel rounds but anti-material (vehicles primarily) and interestingly, post WWII the steel core 30/06 rounds proved to be more accurate for target shooting in the Garand and 1903A3 rifles than most FMJ ball rounds.
It wasn't until the late 1960's early 1970's that the landscape really changed, and it wasn't a benign discovery in a lab, on either end of the question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chance_(body_armor)
Richard Davis. who you can watch test his invention the hard way in my earlier post in this thread, was a pizza restaurant owner in Detroit that had been robbed repeatedly, the last time being engaged in a gunfight with multiple attackers in which he was shot several times, but managed to survive through good marksmanship and good luck. When things really go to **** and you live through it, that's usually the case.
Davis had a drive to find a way to protect "good guys" in the event they found themselves in the same situation he managed to live through - he had a name and concept before he developed the design. He wanted good guys - that by law and tradition had to wait before the "bad guy" made his play - a "Second Chance" to survive. He developed the first "soft" (believe me, "soft" can be a relative term) concealable bullet proof vest using the Kevlar material developed for radial tire manufacture. The things not only stopped most standard handgun and lesser rifle calibers, it could be manufactured in different "levels" of protection - Rich promoted and tested his products himself - in spectacular fashion as the video I linked to demonstrates - and single handedly created a market
and the product and everyone in the BA market owes him a debt of gratitude.
On the other side of this question, and essentially out of non-LE, non-military view, three men that had concerns over officer/troop survival took it upon themselves to develop a projectile that when fired from a standard handgun in a standard handgun caliber (non-big bore magnum) would penetrate the then current automobile car bodywork and auto glass:
http://www.scfirearms.org/2ndamend/ammo.txt
"Kopsch: "There were a couple gunfights, police versus criminal,
here in Lorraine County, [Ohio]. The ordinary .38 Special service
bullet would not get through the car door. And with any degree
of obliquity, it bounced off the windshield. [Police] Lieutenant
Turcus, Don Ward and I thought maybe we could design a bullet
which would get through the car door, and get through the
windshield and get the crook out of the car ...
That was the genesis of KTW ammunition, later reviled in the media by a crooked politician as a "cop-killer" bullet, never mentioning to the public that it was designed by a cop, a coroner and an investigator to protect cops, but that's another story.
Where we're at here, is that Mike Honda has a bill that does nothing but sounds good to folks that don't know any better.
As a long time user of both military BA and LE BA, let me clue you in. Not only does this bill solve no problems, it's written by people who have no idea what they're talking about. An officer or troop today doesn't have "one" single level of BA - a trooper will have a strike plate and a plate backer - two separate plates that combined get to past level III, an officer will often have a soft armor carrier that can have a hard plate inserted over the chest area again getting to past level III threat protection completely negating the bills stated purpose as two separate purchases under the legislative threshold would get the end user past the legislative threshold.
This bill may or may not be approved, but it will not restrict access to BA by anybody, and an individual with evil intent will still be able to access various material that can be used to produce bullet resistant clothing, autos and structures.
It may however provide some level of satisfaction amongst folks that have no knowledge of the subject matter.
