In my home province, one must pass a pistol permit test to be allowed to purchase body armor.
This seems unfortunate if one only wishes to armor themselves, rather than arm themselves. Must one be a grim warrior to earn the right to protect their person?
Well, I am anyway, which is itself a long story -- which is how I knew of an opportunity to get around this regulation. And I needed an upgrade in my armor anyway, all this chainmail was getting old and was rather heavy to wear. SO. I called my favorite blacksmith and said, "Bob, I got a job for you, and it's gonna be the biggest job I ever asked from you...yeah, bigger than the mail. I need you to make me a full, fitted set of plate armor."
Yes! Plate armor. Perfect for stopping the hollow-point bullets that cops use, and I could sneak in some kevlar behind the plate, and would the police ever see it? No, silly, I'm wearing it and you can't have it! So there! Ha ha!
Bob, smart fellow that he is, never questioned the commission, nor the special extras I was asking for. He just quoted me at an eye-watering price. I paid it gladly, and soon enough, I had there, in the entrance hall of my hilltop manor, a genuine, working set of plate armor. Which I immediately donned. I wasn't wasting another second! And so I marched out into the world, dressed in my armor that no dang lawman could take from me.
Unfortunately, I was rather inexperienced with wearing a fully-enclosed helmet, so I had trouble figuring out where I was walking with the lack of peripheral vision. All of a sudden I felt a length of wood shoved into my hand, and someone was lifting me up and I was sitting on a horse -- and I was kind of kicking the horse as I tried to get off, which set it cantering forward, and through my visor I finally saw that there was some other ruffian in plate armor charging straight towards me, with a whole entire lance pointed right at me --
I managed to get my own lance leveled in time and smacked the brute off his horse. So now I had two horses, which is just what you need for long-distance travel! Ask the Mongols.
Unfortunately, some manner of unarmed knave -- must have been a peasant, how revolting -- came up and said I could dismount now, they needed the horse back. And I said, "Dismount? Horse back? Nay, thou base-born churl! This steed is mine! What can you do about it, anyway? The armor is mine as well!" And I kicked the horse again and galloped off.
It was a pleasant trot down country lanes on a beautiful bright summer day...for a few minutes, before I started to hear a terrifying whooping and wailing noise behind me. Methought it was a banshee! But as I wheeled my horses 'round, I could see it was a curious boxy metal beast, with blue and red lights attached to its back, flashing so to make a man's eyes water. And there was a man standing next to the beast, dressed in blue, pointing a curious black rectangle at me, demanding I raise my hands and surrender.
Ha! No brave knight such as I would be daunted in the face of such a bluff! I levelled my lance and set my horse at a gallop, charging the great boxy beast. There was an ear-splitting crack at the same time as a ringing pling, which deafened me something awful -- but on I rode, heedless of all danger.
I found myself sitting on the cold earth amid countless splinters of wood, the horse nowhere to be seen. The man in blue asked me if I was injured. I sprang to my feet and said, "Nay, fiend, I have only just begun to fight!" And I drew my sword --
I found myself pinned beneath quite a lot of men, all of a sudden.
They took the armor, sadly, and were able to discover the kevlar. So that scotched that plan.
Fortunately, I was able to argue in court that the sheer amount of money I owned made me less than right in the head, and I got off with a small fine for disturbing the peace. Isn't it so wonderful how friendly our justice system is?