When I started in EMS almost 30 years ago the idea of needing to wear body armor on the job was laughable at best, we were paramedics, we never went anywhere that the cops hadn’t cleared first. Some of our co-workers were attached to SWAT teams and needed it for those duties, but that was seen as an outlier to most of us. Shortly after 9/11 we started to realize that we might not be as safe as we thought we were and you started to see more paramedics and EMT’s wearing body armor, we rationalized that it helped keep you safer in a crash of if you slipped and fell on an icy sidewalk. The world we knew before was quickly becoming more and more dangerous, more guns on the streets, more knives, more mentally ill people who wanted to hurt you when you went to their aid. School shootings were picking up as a generation of young people felt like their only chance of being noticed was to cause violence to their schools or businesses. The need for better armor that could stop a rifle round became much greater. Many of us added a rifle plate to our daily uniform, usually something we could slide into our soft armor if the need arose.
The idea of civilians needing rifle rated body armor really came to the for front of everyone’s mind after several high profile shootings around 2010, people started looking for cost effective armor that could protect themselves and their families should disaster strike. After the Sandyhook shooting there was a renewed interest in teaching lay people how to stop bleeding during an active shooter situation, having an active shooter kit which includes a plate carrier with rifle rated plates could save the rescuer’s life if the shooter returned.
There are drawbacks to having rifle rated armor, it’s heavy, its cumbersome, and can be very warm, which is something the user will need to plan for. I can say for certainty that all that weight and heat becomes an acceptable option when its what is keeping you from getting injured or killed.