Newsgroups: ca.politics,talk.politics.misc
From: [s c habel] at [calspan.com] (Dave Schabel)
Subject: Re: Straight Talk on Crime
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 23:16:45 GMT

Thanks to [l v c] at [cbvox1.att.com] (Lawrence V Cipriani) for the orginal text.
------------------------
The following text is from the NRAction newsletter, Volume 4, Issue 5
(May 1990); it is an interview with one one of the inventors of the KTW
bullet, and is a subset of a larger article.
--
We decided to go to the source, to track down the inventor of the
original "cop-killer" bullet, originally marketed as the "KTW"
bullet.  We found the "K" of "KTW," Dr. Paul Kopsch told us that
the bullet was made exclusively for police and military use.  And
had nothing to do with protective vests.

Kopsch: "There were a couple gunfights, police versus criminal,
here in Lorraine County, [Ohio].  The ordinary .38 Special service
bullet would not get through the car door.  And with any degree
of obliquity, it bounced off the windshield.  [Police] Lieutenant
Turcus, Don Ward and I thought maybe we could design a bullet
which would get through the car door, and get through the
windshield and get the crook out of the car ...

Kopsch explained that the teflon coating, which a host of media
and lawmakers alleged was the key to penetrating body armor,
served one purpose.  It helped bullets go through smooth surfaces,
like windshields and car doors, especially at oblique angles.
The former Army medical officer likened it to the teflon tip of a
walking stick.  It simply grabs better.

Kopsch: "Adding a teflon coating to the round added 20% penetration
power on metal and glass.  Critics kept complaining about teflon's
ability to penetrate body armor.  That was nonsense typical of
do-gooders.  In fact, teflon cut down on the round's ability to
cut through the nylon or kevlar of body armor."

Thus, Kopsch and police officers Turcus and Ward invented the "KTW"
round.  It was designed to be shot by police and military through
car doors and windshields at criminals, terrorists -- not, as
Chief McNamara would have people believe -- through ballistic
resistant vests worn by police officers.

Could the round penetrate such vests?  Again, Dr. Kopsch ...

Kopsch: "It'll defeat the ordinary ballistic nylon or Kevlar vest,
but as I said, the teflon gives away its purpose and detracts from
it's ability to penetrate body armor.  Moreover, no armored police
officer has been killed by the round, and interestingly enough
the man who brought this to national attention ws the Honorable
Rep. Mario Biaggi, who was in the U.S. House of Representatives
at the time.  When he called attention to the fact that the
police were wearing bullet-resistant garments, the criminals
started to shoot for the head.  So Biaggi may have gotten quite a
few policeman killed ...

"We never sold [KTW] to the public.  Sales were always limited to
the police and the military.  It had been available to the police
and military for roughly five years before Biaggi started this ...
it was a hoax on [Biaggi's] part that got him national publicity."

In bumper sticker language, Kopsch's much-maligned invention was
a cop-saver bullet.
-- 
Larry Cipriani, att!cbvox1!lvc or [l v c] at [cbvox1.att.com]
"An unarmed people are slaves, or subject to slavery
at any moment." -- Huey P. Newton.



					Dave Schabel


-- 
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Dave Schabel         | Opinions and comments contained herein are mine and  |
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Located in Western NY| its customers.                                       |