Deez Nutz

I've got a bigger problem with anything on that list than I do with wearing masks in public.

dsftm

Name checks out.

Need

Exactly. How is assaulting anyone (except in self defense) not a felony? Don't need a new law for that!

BearX220

You have problems with airport security and drunk driving laws? What kind of a society do you aspire to?

cmd320

You're going to find a lot of people on this website that have problems with airport security.

PaulMSN

From the article: "A simple battery charge is considered a misdemeanor". This law assures it is charged as a felony.

BearX220

i find people on this website who worry more about the way their limes are cut up on the first class bar cart than about global public health and safety, but that does not make them thought leaders.

Deez Nutz

A freer one. I think drivers should be held accountable for damages and injuries they cause, but the one-size-fits-all BAC standard is arbitrary; particularly as determined from breath.

Airport security lost its way a long time ago. Disallowing sharp objects was obsolete before it was even implemented. It is no longer possible to hijack an airplane with scissors; the passengers won't allow it and the cockpit doors have been reinforced.

Loren Pechtel

Drunks misjudge how capable they are--we need a hard standard. I do have a problem with basing it on breath, though--the technology is inherently unreliable--different people have a different ratio between blood alcohol and breath alcohol. The breathalyzer should only be a screening test to see if a blood draw is warranted, it has no business in the courtroom.

cmd320

The point is it’s an arbitrary and stupid system like most of the rest of the aforementioned items.

I trust the 30 year old with a BAC of 0.12 a lot more than I trust the 80 year old with a BAC of 0.00 who joins the freeway going to wrong direction. Yet nothing is being done about that.

Dublin_rfk

I take issue with nanny state fiefdoms suddenly deciding that they have the right to restrict and control every aspect of my life and get outraged over resistance to their over reach.

BearX220

Hyperbole does not become you. It's hardly "every aspect of your life," only a few small things to protect public health. Stout insistence on elevating hypermasculine toxic individualism over the well-being of our communities is a uniquely American trait, but in this case a literally fatal one. The absurd notion that "state fiefdoms" are out to "control every aspect of your life" is preposterous. You can do anything you want in almost every aspect of your life, nobody cares what you eat for breakfast or how much you spend on movies or what books you read. But your right to swing your fists ends where my face begins, and refusing to support virus control measures is the epidemiological equivalent of punching strangers in the face. Such attitudes are why the US will be left in the dust as a recidivist object of global pity while mature countries recover and move forward.

cmd320

Yet...

nmpls

You know how full our prisons would be if every fist-fight was a felony?

sdsearch

Well, from a legal perspective, not all "assaults" are necessarily considered the same.

At least in Illinois, there are at least two types of assault claims. "Simple assault" is classified as a misdemeanor, "aggravated assault" is classified as a felony.

The reason assaulting an employee over face mask enforcement is now a felony in Illinois is because it got reclassified from "simple assault" to "aggravated assault".