A Tennessee engineer’s plan to create a bullet that could pierce police body armor would likely lead to federal legislation prohibiting the ammunition, according to gun law attorneys.
Atlas Arms founder Austin Thomas Jones says he’s formulating a 9mm Luger to blast through all soft armor and some rifle-rated hard armor — including a legal workaround of a 1986 federal law banning certain types of armor-piercing ammunition.
Jones said his efforts, announced on Dec. 25, 2018, are aimed at fighting gun restrictions. Jones said he is working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
ATF did not immediately respond to a request for comment by the Washington Examiner.
Jones promises on his company’s website he will eventually make available to the public all of his team’s research and data.
John W. Dillon, a National Rifle Association member who founded the Gatzke, Dillon, and Ballance LLP Fire Arms law firm in California, said it’s a good sign Jones says he’s working with ATF.
That “would indicate that he is trying to make sure that it is legal ammunition and that he is not in violation of the law,” Dillon told the Washington Examiner.
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The 33-year-old Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act prevents the public from obtaining or building bullets that are strong enough to penetrate body armor from certain materials, including brass, beryllium copper, bronze, depleted uranium, steel, and tungsten alloys.
“This is to show how the government’s behind, I guess in their regulations of the technology, and it seems like he is just trying to get a reaction out of people. It doesn’t even seem that he has fully developed the ammunition he’s talking about,” Dillon said.
Stephen Misko, a criminal defense lawyer who previously worked as a local police officer, ATF agent, and assistant district attorney in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, said the potential body-armor piercers reflect innovation that happens in all industries. Often, inventions and breakthroughs can exploit legal loopholes, requiring tweaks to existing laws to protect public safety.
“Congress would move quickly probably at the request of law enforcement and ATF to ban that,” Misko told the Washington Examiner. “Obviously, the safety of law enforcement is the greatest concern and you don’t want individuals in the marketplace attempting to purchase this, which would certainly endanger the lives of law enforcement officers.”
