It could soon be illegal to publicly wear a mask for health reasons in North Carolina

return2ozma@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 445 points –
It could soon be illegal to publicly wear a mask for health reasons in NC
arstechnica.com
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Bad title, if the article is accurate. What's happening is they are trying to repeal an exemption made in 2020 to existing anti-mask laws that were instituted to curtail secret societies and the KKK.

It does not appear that masking for health reasons was prosecuted before the exemption was made for covid. Would it be prosecuted now though is the question.

The title is 100% accurate. A thing being "illegal" isn't a matter of enforcement.

It was also a bad law to begin with. It may not have been prosecuted, but masking for health reasons should never have been illegal in the first place, because illegality both discourages use and opens the wearer up to risks of arbitrary enforcement or its use for pretextual stops or harassment.

And this is all assuming nothing changed since before COVID. Now masking is politicized and rightwing people (a disproportionate number of cops) get irrationally angry at medical masking.

That’s legalese for what they are doing. The only potential inaccuracy I see that they want to forbid earring masks in demonstrations/protests, not in general public places like a mall.