i highly doubt i'll be encountering house burglars wearing body armor...
I agree totally. In fact, I highly doubt you will be encountering burglars or even a loan burglar. You may get burglarized, but more than likely you won't encounter one in your house.
Of all the people I know that have been burglarized, only one actually confronted the burglar and the burglar was the last of a group working diligently to get the hell out of the house as quickly as possible. A couple (including myself) have interrupted burglars without actually encountering them. In my case, it was at my grandmother's house. I rang the bell and the burglar(s) bolted out the back, slamming the door in the process.
With that said, I have known three individuals who have suffered armed home invasions, two of which were groups coming through the front door forcibly. So you may not encounter a group of burglars with body armor, or a single one, but that also isn't the only sort of encounter you may have in your home, though it would still be an extremely rare event.
Yes, these things happen all the time. There maybe a couple in the newspaper every day in a large metropolitan area. A couple a day in a city with a few hundred thousand domiciles is a drop in the bucket.
Still, we keep a rifle and a shotgun for home defense. My wife prefers the shotgun. I prefer the rifle.
HOWEVER: Even getting shot with a .32ACP wearing Lv. IIIA soft armor will HURT. The bullet penetration is stopped, and the energy transfer is spread out some, but it will still hurt, and larger calibers can and will break ribs, crack sternums and cause all sorts of other damage.
Yes, it can hurt. I have read literally hundreds of accounts of people being shot wearing body armor (there is the SAVES list and several companies like Safariland have their own
http://www.safariland.com/bodyarmor/Saves-Club.aspx ). In the pics I have seen of folks chests, guts, and backs after being shot, they often have some nice baseball-grapefruit-sized bruising. Some have skin burns associated with the impact. Many are hospitalized for observation and quickly released. Most suffer no major injuries at all, though you are correct in that ribs CAN be cracked. The sternum CAN be broken. Shoulder blades and collarbones CAN also suffer as well. There CAN be some internal organ bruising or damage. While these things can happen, the more serious ones often or usually do not.
Here is the link for the Kevlar Survivors' Club.
http://52.128.225.198/SurvivorClub/
With that said, at the time of being shot, the reactions of those shot is pretty amazing. Being in some pain generally did not preclude shootees from fighting back and often fighting back quite effectively. In some cases, officers did not realize they had actually been shot (which also happens to some who aren't wearing vests). Some liken getting shot to being punched in the chest. Some lose their breath. Many report feeling much worse the day AFTER being shot (sort of like feeling worse the day after being in a car wreck).
Note that there are numerous cases of officers being shot multiple times in the vest and still continuing to battle, often with a result of the suspect being arrested or killed.
Shooting an invader wearing body armor may cause that person some pain, but if the body armor stops the bullet, there is a high likelihood that the person will be in fine enough shape to continue what s/he wanted to do.
