Post by Nadica (She/Her) on Sept 13, 2024 3:41:37 GMT
Mask bans are dumb, dangerous | Editorial - Published Sept 11, 2024
Sen. Jon Bramnick will be proposing a bill on Thursday to ban people from wearing masks at public gatherings in New Jersey. It’s part of a national trend: Republicans have been seeking to criminalize face masks even as COVID cases are surging, once again.
The idea, he says, is simply to discourage troublemakers like campus activists protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, or criminals on their way to hold up a store, from hiding their faces.
“This bill prohibits a person from wearing a mask while congregating in a public place with other people who are also masked or disguised,” it reads, listing a few notable exceptions, like Halloween.
After Jan. 6th, the FBI poured over video footage of the Capitol rioters, Bramnick notes; we want to be able to identify and track down people like that afterwards. That’s true, and his intentions are not malevolent. But this is a superficial policy that quickly falls apart on the details, and presents a clear danger to civil liberties.
Start with this basic question: What if a troublemaker simply decides to disguise his face with large sunglasses and a hat, instead? Are we going to criminalize sunglasses and hats, too? Where will it end?
Not to mention all the enforcement and constitutional problems that this bill presents. Even with an exception for people who wear masks for medical reasons, it’s a threat to personal freedoms, because it leaves it up to the cops to decide whether someone has a legitimate medical reason for wearing a mask at a public gathering.
How will they know that? It’s subjective. And based on past experience, we know what that means: Police will disproportionately stop and question Black and brown people, who have also been the most likely to continue wearing masks to protect against COVID-19.
And, as Jim Sullivan of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey adds, this “overbroad and vague” bill “also gives law enforcement the ability to target people based on their political beliefs.”
If Republicans are trying to send a message, a more sensible way to do it would be to increase the penalties for anyone committing a crime in disguise – something that Bramnick says he would “100%” consider.
Good. Because in its current iteration, this bill would do little to deter actual criminals, while only further stigmatizing mask wearing for vulnerable people.
Ask anyone still masking because of a weakened immune system, or to protect a loved one, and odds are they’ve already encountered plenty of snide comments or hostility. Criminalizing masks won’t help. As the Washington Post reported:
“The day after the North Carolina House of Representatives passed its anti-masking bill in June in response to pro-Palestinian protests at the University of North Carolina, Shari Stuart said a man confronted her for wearing a surgical mask when she walked into an auto service center in the Raleigh area to get an oil change. After she tried to explain that she has Stage 4 breast cancer and a weakened immune system, Stuart said, the man called her a ‘f---ing liberal’ and insisted masks were now illegal. He later coughed on her and said he hoped the cancer would kill her.”
Nice. Adam Reich, a commuter advocate in New Jersey, still wears a mask in public places to protect himself and medically vulnerable loved ones from COVID, including his mother who recently died after a long battle with cancer, and fears a similar chilling effect here.
He is Jewish American, and laments that some Jewish legislators have gotten behind mask bans like this; they’re not effective in fighting antisemitism, he says, and may even further inflame the problem with their infringements on personal freedoms. And in the meantime, he adds, “This narrative against masking makes it more difficult for me in places where I need accommodation, because there’s this resistance.”
Add to that the frustration that he may now have to fight for “the ability to exercise my right to protest peacefully and safely at a gathering.” This is a bill, he says, that “undermines a valuable public health lesson for a political purpose.”
Right. Remember when former Gov. Chris Christie released an ad in 2020 in defense of mask wearing, after he ended up in the hospital ICU for a week with COVID, fighting for his life? “I think about how wrong it is to let mask wearing divide us, especially as we now know you’re twice as likely to get COVID-19 if you don’t wear a mask,” Christie said. “If you don’t do the right thing, we could all end up on the wrong side of history. Please, wear a mask.”
Or, at the very least, don’t criminalize someone else for wearing one.
Sen. Jon Bramnick will be proposing a bill on Thursday to ban people from wearing masks at public gatherings in New Jersey. It’s part of a national trend: Republicans have been seeking to criminalize face masks even as COVID cases are surging, once again.
The idea, he says, is simply to discourage troublemakers like campus activists protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, or criminals on their way to hold up a store, from hiding their faces.
“This bill prohibits a person from wearing a mask while congregating in a public place with other people who are also masked or disguised,” it reads, listing a few notable exceptions, like Halloween.
After Jan. 6th, the FBI poured over video footage of the Capitol rioters, Bramnick notes; we want to be able to identify and track down people like that afterwards. That’s true, and his intentions are not malevolent. But this is a superficial policy that quickly falls apart on the details, and presents a clear danger to civil liberties.
Start with this basic question: What if a troublemaker simply decides to disguise his face with large sunglasses and a hat, instead? Are we going to criminalize sunglasses and hats, too? Where will it end?
Not to mention all the enforcement and constitutional problems that this bill presents. Even with an exception for people who wear masks for medical reasons, it’s a threat to personal freedoms, because it leaves it up to the cops to decide whether someone has a legitimate medical reason for wearing a mask at a public gathering.
How will they know that? It’s subjective. And based on past experience, we know what that means: Police will disproportionately stop and question Black and brown people, who have also been the most likely to continue wearing masks to protect against COVID-19.
And, as Jim Sullivan of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey adds, this “overbroad and vague” bill “also gives law enforcement the ability to target people based on their political beliefs.”
If Republicans are trying to send a message, a more sensible way to do it would be to increase the penalties for anyone committing a crime in disguise – something that Bramnick says he would “100%” consider.
Good. Because in its current iteration, this bill would do little to deter actual criminals, while only further stigmatizing mask wearing for vulnerable people.
Ask anyone still masking because of a weakened immune system, or to protect a loved one, and odds are they’ve already encountered plenty of snide comments or hostility. Criminalizing masks won’t help. As the Washington Post reported:
“The day after the North Carolina House of Representatives passed its anti-masking bill in June in response to pro-Palestinian protests at the University of North Carolina, Shari Stuart said a man confronted her for wearing a surgical mask when she walked into an auto service center in the Raleigh area to get an oil change. After she tried to explain that she has Stage 4 breast cancer and a weakened immune system, Stuart said, the man called her a ‘f---ing liberal’ and insisted masks were now illegal. He later coughed on her and said he hoped the cancer would kill her.”
Nice. Adam Reich, a commuter advocate in New Jersey, still wears a mask in public places to protect himself and medically vulnerable loved ones from COVID, including his mother who recently died after a long battle with cancer, and fears a similar chilling effect here.
He is Jewish American, and laments that some Jewish legislators have gotten behind mask bans like this; they’re not effective in fighting antisemitism, he says, and may even further inflame the problem with their infringements on personal freedoms. And in the meantime, he adds, “This narrative against masking makes it more difficult for me in places where I need accommodation, because there’s this resistance.”
Add to that the frustration that he may now have to fight for “the ability to exercise my right to protest peacefully and safely at a gathering.” This is a bill, he says, that “undermines a valuable public health lesson for a political purpose.”
Right. Remember when former Gov. Chris Christie released an ad in 2020 in defense of mask wearing, after he ended up in the hospital ICU for a week with COVID, fighting for his life? “I think about how wrong it is to let mask wearing divide us, especially as we now know you’re twice as likely to get COVID-19 if you don’t wear a mask,” Christie said. “If you don’t do the right thing, we could all end up on the wrong side of history. Please, wear a mask.”
Or, at the very least, don’t criminalize someone else for wearing one.