Will a bulletproof backpack actually protect your child?

Mom who started A Safe Pack: Only a Level III backpack can protect from a rifle

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Bulletproof backpack sales are up. Companies that make them say it's a 200% to 300% increase after last weekend's mass shootings.

But will those backpacks really protect your child?

Getting ready to go back to school is a little different in the Gaines house nowadays. 

"This is terrible that I have to put body armor in my kids' backpacks," said Carrie Ann Gaines.

Gaines, a stay at home mom, said she was so scared to send her kids to school that she started A Safe Pack, a company that sells bulletproof backpack shields.

"It’s a very scary thing to deal with, when you have stepped through that threshold and you decide to give your child body armor. It’s not a good feeling," Gaines said. "If you are going to do that, you have to make sure that you’re protecting them from a rifle, not just a handgun."

Gaines explained that not all body armor is equal. In fact, which one you buy can mean the difference of life and death. There are two different categories of armored backpacks. 

"This is Level III. That’s what you want. This is what’s going to stop a rifle round,” Gaines said.

A Level IIIA backpack is only going to protect from a 9-mm handgun and a 44 magnum, but not a rifle. Only a Level III backpack can protect from a rifle, which was used in the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio; El Paso, Texas; Parkland, Florida; and at Sandy Hook Elementary. 

Before you buy, take a look at the fine print. It could save your child’s life.