Colombian company selling bulletproof backpacks for US kids

Washington Post:

Miguel Caballero’s business, making bulletproof clothing for the fashion-conscious, has grown over the years as presidents to police chiefs to oil sheiks from as far away as Qatar have become loyal customers.

Dubbed “the Armani of bulletproof clothing,” the Bogota-based company that bears his name sells trench coats, sweaters, leather jackets and blazers, along with more standard fare, bulletproof vests. But now Caballero, ever on the lookout for new customers, is zeroing in on an untapped market: American schoolchildren.

With his new line, MC Kids, Caballero offers backpacks and jackets for kids, including some in girlie pink and stamped with fluttering fairies, that are also outfitted with bulletproof plating to stop the slugs from an Uzi. Caballero, 46, said that in his 20 years of business, there had never been a demand in Colombia for bulletproof children’s clothing.

But the United States is a different market: a country where there are about as many firearms as people, Caballero pointed out, and where mass shootings have simply prompted some to stock up on weapons and seek other forms of protection.

“The rest of the countries in the world try to disarm, but in the United States they say, ‘Let’s protect ourselves,’ ” he said. “So in that light, that’s a business opportunity.”

About 300 of the children’s rucksacks, retailing for just under $300, have been sold in metropolitan Denver by Caballero’s U.S. distributor, Elite Sterling Security, said the U.S. company’s founder, A.J. Zabadne.

Elite Sterling is now trying to interest school districts in that area — where memories of the Columbine school shooting and the massacre at the Aurora movie theater are fresh — to buy Caballero’s bright-red safety vests. Those would be bought in bulk and stored in classrooms until “a ballistics emergency,” as Caballero puts it.
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Some US companies are entering the market.   But, at $300 it would be cheaper to buy a gun.  When you consider that most school backpacks can be bought for between $10 and $20 at Wal-Mart I suspect the market will be limited to wealthy parents who feel their kids are at risk.