Bulletproof Backpack Sales Spike After Sandy Hook

Company says sales have practically quadrupled since the elementary school massacre.

Following the murder of 20 children at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., parents across the country have began purchasing bulletproof bookbags for their children. Elmar Uy, vice president of business operations at BulletBlocker, told the New York Daily News that his company is experiencing the biggest spike in sales he’s ever seen -- a 300 percent to 400 percent increase in sales since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary.

BulletBlocker’s child safety backpack retails for $199.99, but the company also sells lower cost “shields” that can be inserted into existing laptop bags and purses. Uy started the company after the Columbine shootings of 1999, but said he never expected interest to grow this big.  Amendment II, another company specializing in bulletproof bags, said it didn’t see this kind of interest even after the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting. However, the safety precautions may have come a bit too late in certain areas as some Miami schools are enforcing safety precautions to forbid students from carrying backpacks altogether. (NY Daily News)

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Let's Talk: Terror in Newtown

Join Loop 21 on Twitter tonight at 8 to talk about the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary

The massacre of 20 first-graders and six educators at a small elementary school in Newtown, Conn., Friday has led to some of even the staunchest gun-owners advocates questioning the unfettered right to bear arms in this nation.

The rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School is hardly the first mass shooting this nation has faced, nor is the country immune to the deadly gun violence that takes place in homes and on street corners almost daily in cities big and small. But the murders in the bucolic New York suburb of Newtown seem to have struck the largest nerve in the country, with stoic journalists and the president of the United States alike finding it difficult to remain composed.

Why? What is it about the Newtown massacre that makes it stand out from the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo., or the rampage on the campus of Virginia Tech, or the hundreds of people, most of them young black men and boys, killed in gun violence on the streets of Chicago this year? What could be/should be the outcome when it comes to the regulation of guns in the United States?

Let's talk about it! Follow Loop 21 on Twitter to join a TweetUp tonight at 8 p.m. EST when we'll talk about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn. The hashtag is #L21Newtown.

Join us for our live TweetUp!

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