Second Chance is an American

body armor Body armor, also known as body armour, personal armor or armour, or a suit or coat of armor, is protective clothing designed to absorb or deflect physical attacks. Historically used to protect military personnel, today it is also used by vario ...

manufacturing company that was the first firm to use

kevlar Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s ...

for body armor. The company was founded in the early 1970s by former U.S. Marine and

pizza delivery Pizza delivery is a service in which a pizzeria or pizza chain delivers a pizza to a customer. An order is typically made either by telephone, or over the internet, in which the customer can request pizza type and size, and other items to be ...

owner/driver Richard Davis. Davis developed the idea of a bulletproof vest after shooting three armed robbers in self-defense during a delivery. This incident was later documented in a 1995 book written by firearms instructor

Massad Ayoob Massad F. Ayoob (born July 20, 1948) is an American firearms and self-defense instructor. He has taught police techniques and civilian self-defense to both law enforcement officers and private citizens since 1974. He was the director of the Leth ...

called ''The Ayoob Files: The Book''. Davis started his company out of his garage. In early sales demonstrations, he would put on one of his vests and then shoot himself, usually with a firearm provided by whatever agency he was demonstrating for. In 1998, Second Chance introduced

Zylon Zylon ( IUPAC name: poly(''p''-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole)) is a trademarked name for a range of thermoset liquid-crystalline polyoxazole. This synthetic polymer material was invented and developed by SRI International in the 1980s and manuf ...

-based body armor (bullet-resistant vests), as a lightweight alternative to kevlar. The Zylon material used in the vests was supplied by Japan-based Toyobo. In June 2005, the

National Institute of Justice The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development and evaluation agency of the United States Department of Justice. NIJ, along with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Juven ...

, the United States government agency responsible for developing safety standards, determined that these Zylon-based vests did not meet the required standards and may be defective. The

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and a ...

advised law enforcement agencies to replace the vests used by police officers. On August 2, 2005, Second Chance was acquired by Armor Holdings, Inc. for US$45 million. In 2022,

Ramin Bahrani Ramin Bahrani ( fa, رامین بحرانی; born March 20, 1975) is an American director and screenwriter. Film critic Roger Ebert ranked Bahrani's ''Chop Shop'' (2007) as the sixth-best film of the 2000s, calling him "the new director of the ...

directed a

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

called ''2nd Chance'', based on Davis's life and company. It premiered at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,6 ...

https://deadline.com/2022/01/2nd-chance-sundance-showtime-acquisition-1234922281/amp/

References

Further reading