Every day throughout America, thousands of police officers strap on bulletproof vests to protect themselves from violent criminals.
But on May 14, 2022, body armor protected mass murderer Payton Gendron as he shot and killed 10 Black men and women at a Buffalo supermarket.
Weeks after the Tops Markets massacre, New York State enacted a law banning the sale of body armor to most private citizens, and that law is now under attack from gun rights advocates who call it unconstitutional.
A Lake View man and a gun rights organization based in Las Vegas filed a federal lawsuit seeking to make it legal for private citizens here to buy and own bulletproof vests and other body armor.
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The Firearms Policy Coalition and one of its members, Benjamin Heeter of Lake View, allege that the state’s body armor ban is unconstitutional.
A judge has rejected motions to dismiss two lawsuits against a gun equipment manufacturer filed by relatives of nine people killed in the 2022 Buffalo mass shooting and others who survived the assault.
The lawsuit claims the state law violates the rights of law-abiding citizens who want to wear body armor to protect themselves from criminals.
Body armor is not a weapon but a means of defending someone from harm, the lawsuit argues.
“New York’s body armor ban shows that the State’s commitment to authoritarianism has collapsed into absurdity, making it a crime to buy and use simple personal protective equipment,” said Brandon Combs, president of the firearms group that filed the lawsuit.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the body armor ban into law in July 2022, weeks after Gendron, 18, wore body armor he purchased online as he targeted and killed Black people inside the market on Jefferson Avenue.
According to Buffalo police, store security officer Aaron Salter Jr. fired a shot that struck Gendron’s body armor. Gendron was unhurt and he continued his attack, killing Salter and others.
Gov. Kathy Hochul will work with the State Legislature to amend a law she just signed that restricts the purchase of soft body armor by citizens to make sure it prevents them from buying the type of hard body armor plates that a gunman wore while killing 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket, her staff said Sunday.
“Wearing that body armor, on that day, allowed Gendron to keep shooting people after Aaron Salter shot him,” recalled former Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn, whose office convicted Gendron of murder.
“Gendron wore body armor and a helmet, and a camera to film all the violence. It was all part of the incredible amount of planning he put into his crime.”
Speaking to The Buffalo News on Friday, Flynn said he understands the need to keep criminals like Gendron from utilizing body armor.
But he said he also understands why some law-abiding citizens – such as a store clerk working in a high-crime neighborhood – might also want to wear body armor.
“I have to say, in all the violent crimes I ever prosecuted, Payton Gendron is the only criminal I recall wearing body armor during a shooting,” said Flynn, now a partner in a Buffalo law firm. “I’m sure it happens at times, but very rarely.”
Gendron is serving a life term in state prison after pleading guilty to murder and domestic terrorism charges last year. He still faces federal charges that potentially could result in the death penalty.
Speaking of the body armor restriction, Combs claimed that New York’s laws have gone “far off the deep end.”
In a statement issued after the lawsuit was filed on July 1, Combs said his organization “looks forward to eliminating this unconstitutional law and teaching New York another lesson about constitutionally protected rights.”
The News was unable to reach Heeter, the Firearms Policy Coalition or its attorney, Nicolas J. Rotsko, on Friday. None of those parties responded to phone messages left by a reporter.
In court papers, Heeter said he wants to buy body armor because he was surrounded by angry Black Lives Matters protesters in Niagara Square on May 30, 2020. He said the experience caused him to fear for his safety in the event of future civil unrest.
The Governor’s Office did not respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.
Body armor has saved the lives of more than 3,000 law enforcement officers, according to a study by the National Institute for Justice.
“Body armor is in common use in every state for lawful purposes,” the lawsuit states. “Indeed, a recent analysis of the body armor market concluded that American civilians spent $41.9 million on body armor in 2022, which is projected to increase to $69.2 million by 2034.”
The lawsuit also claims that “only a negligible percentage” of criminals choose to wear body armor while committing crimes.
Since 1984, according to the lawsuit, it has been a felony to wear a “body vest” during commission of a crime in possession of a gun.
But only a “handful” of people have been charged with that crime in New York over the past 40 years, the lawsuit states.
According to Spartan Armor Systems, a body armor business based in Arizona, New York is the only state that bans most private citizens from buying body armor. The company said many states have laws preventing criminals from using body armor.
The effort to eliminate New York’s restrictions on body armor comes a month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a federal ban on bump stocks. A bump stock is a device used to greatly increase the rapid-fire rate of a semiautomatic weapon.
Bump stocks were banned by President Donald Trump following a mass shooting at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. A shooter using a gun with a bump stock killed 60 people and injured about 850 others. Police said his gun fired more than 1,000 rounds into a crowd in 11 minutes.
Mayor Byron Brown reads the names of the 10 people killed in the May 14, 2022, racist shooting at Tops.
