I'm taking a guess at what the OP meant, but people focus on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. Supposedly most incidents and deaths are caused by handguns. They're more affordable, and easy to discretely keep on your person. A data-driven policy would focus on them first, but it's easier to rile up the public about AR-15s so we keep doing the less-effective thing.
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replyOne might wonder about why ceramic plates are controlled in Connecticut or New York.
replyIt looks like Connecticut first enacted body armor regulations in 1998, the year after the North Hollywood police shootout with a pair of heavily armed and armored men:
replyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout#Weapo...
It's hard to find 1998 news articles about it now, but I would guess that the law was a reaction to this high profile crime.
The second militia act of 1792. Though that required you to have a gun. Which in some fashion required monitoring. In modern times many states require you to have a permit to own a firearm and states regularly prosecute people without a license. In Washington state they have laws about safe storage and the police can come into your house to inspect your storage solution without if someone calls them and says you aren’t storing it properly. There’s a constant stream of cases fighting these laws in court. In the 2025-2026 SCOTUS term there were 14 petitions for cert.
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