On Wed, 19 Apr 2000, James Wetterau wrote:
>
> Then there are the kinds of
> guns and bullets police officers have access to -- "cop killer"
> bullets.
"Cop killer" bullets are essentially a media-generated urban legend.
Modern body armor will stop all modern pistol bullets, "cop killer" or
otherwise, with the exception of some highly specialized cartridges for use
in highly specialized guns that have never been available for public
consumption anyway. There is also the matter of the fact that any rifle
bullet will penetrate the soft body armor worn by cops; there is nothing
special about this ability.
Hollywood has pretty much invented the whole mystically
endowed genre of "cop killer" ammunition, usually described as
"teflon-coated", "black-tipped", or using a description of some other
irrelevant feature of the cartridge. The ignorant public eats this stuff
up.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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