N.C. GOP Moves to Ban Masks in Public, Dems Call 'Unthinkable'

With the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview mirror, the Republican-controlled North Carolina state Senate voted Wednesday to ban people from wearing face masks in public.

Predictably, perpetually aggrieved Democrats were quick to cry foul.

GOP lawmakers took aim at agitators who showed up to protests wearing masks to hide their identities, explaining that the law would help enforce the law, according to The Hill.

“It's about time the madness slowed down, if not literally stopped,” said state Sen. Buck Newton (R), who sponsored the bill.

Newton explained that he expects police officers to use “good common sense.” He added, “We didn't see grandma getting arrested at Walmart pre-COVID.”

The Hill reported that if a person is arrested for masked protesting, the bill would raise a person's crime classification, whether it's a misdemeanor or a felony, to a higher class. North Carolina passed a law banning masks in public on 1953 in an effort to crack down on the Ku Klux Klan, and the bill is back public masking rules in their pre-pandemic form.

“It's unconscionable,” state Sen. Lisa Grafstein (D) said, according to WRAL.

State Sen. Natasha Marcus, a Democrat, made it clear that while the pandemic is over, she has no interest in returning to normal.

“You say, 'Well, this wasn't a problem before COVID,'” Marcus told Newton during a debate on the bill, according to the Associated Press. “The world is different now. We can't go back to when pandemics didn't happen.”

“Do you really find masked chemotherapy patients threatening? Does anything about them make you very angry?” he asked, according to WRAL. “Or is this more likely a desire to score some political points with the anti-mask crowd in an election year, at the expense of vulnerable people?”

State Sen. Sydney Batch (D), a cancer survivor, talked about how her family wore masks because of her weakened immune system while undergoing treatment, the affiliate reported.

“This bill criminalizes their behavior and mine,” he said. “… We talk a lot about freedoms in this chamber. I hear it all the time. I should have the freedom — my children and my husband should have the freedom — to wear masks to protect and save my life, without fear of being arrested and charged.”

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is expected to veto the bill, but the Republican Party has a supermajority in the state and can override the governor's wishes.

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The longest-serving writer for BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a teenager. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.

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