Once Again.... If You Don't Like France...

[Jacob(smooth)]

This point has been made by various people here and it just doesn't hold up. You think French bank robbers won't be wearing masks any more?

Of course some still will. Do you think any legal proscription stops the crime it proscribes? Murders still happen. Are you telling me that laws against murder shouldn't be on the books?

No, the law makes it possible to stop an incipient incident, because after all, the criminal cannot wear the covering from home, and donning it in view of others (say, in the men's room, or in an alleyway) will immediately denote the wearer as someone intent on a crime.

Let's turn this around: do you think a person has a right to privacy in the public sphere? If so, why?

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Can see the scene in the smoky cellar.

"Well **** if we are not allowed to wear masks without breaking the law this heist is a bust. Let's just not bother! "

See my above point to rebut this clever, but vapid, reply.

Then by all means let me unwrap my vapid reply

The difference between the two is that murder is the crime, whereas the mask is one of the things which facilitates the crime. Murder has very specific negative consequences, somebody dies. Wearing a mask does not. It might make a heist (marginally) easier and it might make oppressing your wife (marginally) easier, but in both cases it is peripheral to the actual crime, so banning it is less likely to affect the likelyhood of someone committing said crime very much. THAT is why we need a law for murder but not for niqabs.

A better analogy than murder would be gun control, from the perspective that owning a gun does not, of itself, have a negative outcome. It can however lead to a negative outcome and certainly facilitates murder. But even then its a poor comparison because of the alternatives available.

If we are going to try to control an actual crime (be it bank robbery or murder) by regulating things which make it easier (face coverings or guns) one would have to consider how required the secondary thing is to the actual crime. Having a gun makes it MUCH easier to kill someone so its quite impactful. The wearing of a niqab however is not really going to make much difference to a crim planning a heist as he has many other options. A large pair of sunglasses, a hoodie and a fake mustache / beard would conceal him perfectly adequately and could be worn from home or indeed donned on the street quite easily.



Reckon you could pick this guy out from a lineup?

Here's a fun question for you. How many crimes have been committed, in the country where you live (not in iraq which is a completely different scenario), by people wearing niqabs to conceal their identity? Because if that is a significant figure, AND you don't think that the above is an effective disguise, then I'll grant you that a ban would make a significant impact on crime.

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Let's turn this around: do you think a person has a right to privacy in the public sphere? If so, why?

Kind of a wide question, it depends entirely on which bit of the public sphere. For EG, in the NHS, we all have to wear name badges, and that seems fair. But here on a web forum we don't expect to tell people who we are. And that seems fair to.

I would say the question is back asswards. Why should anyone have a right to invade your privacy? And the answer to that depends on the context.

I don't ever want to be stopped by a policeman and told that too much of my face is being covered up and for security reasons he's going to require me to show myself, not just to him, to satisfy himself of who I am, but in general.

[The Grand Nudger]

Reckon you could pick this guy out from a lineup?

I think that I'd have better odds of id'ing that one there than I would with some full face veiled female.

Maybe the objection to ski masks is an absurd one because the -insistence- upon ski masks is absurd? That ever occur to anyone on the pro ski mask side of this? I have a baddass balaclava gas mask/optics/comms combo. I don't wear it into the bank or while I'm walking down main street - but is anyone here willing to argue that I should be able to?

[Jacob(smooth)]

Reckon you could pick this guy out from a lineup?

I think that I'd have better odds of id'ing that one there than I would with some full face veiled female.

Not the question. You'd have a better chance with a full faced veil than if they had a dustbin on their head. The point is, could you pick the guy out of a lineup. The answer is no. And that's a full face well focused closeup. From a grainy CCTV or fleeting glance? No chance. The point being that even were the niqub banned in the UK (i'm assuming its not yet banned in the US?) it is easy to don a perfectly effective face concealment which will do basically the same job (to prevent confident identification), attract LESS attention and be easier to acquire.

Maybe the objection to ski masks is an absurd one because the -insistence- upon ski masks is absurd? That ever occur to anyone on the pro ski mask side of this? I have a baddass balaclava gas mask/optics/comms combo. I don't wear it into the bank or while I'm walking down main street - but is anyone here willing to argue that I should be able to?

I think it should be up to the bank whether you wear it into the bank and up to you if you wear it into the main street. Ditto Shades and a hoodie, dust masks (see a lot of cyclists wearing them in cities), paper bag with two holes cut in it or a goose.


You wanna ban these?

[The Grand Nudger]

Not the question. You'd have a better chance with a full faced veil than if they had a dustbin on their head.

Absolutely, I;d call the cops if I saw a man walking around with a dustbin on his head as well. For the same reasons (and others).

The point is, could you pick the guy out of a lineup. The answer is no. And that's a full face well focused closeup. From a grainy CCTV or fleeting glance? No chance.

We're notoriously unreliable when it comes to lineups in the best of cases. Why would I want to up the odds in favor of that?

I think it should be up to the bank whether you wear it into the bank and up to you if you wear it into the main street. Ditto Shades and a hoodie, dust masks (see a lot of cyclists wearing them in cities), paper bag with two holes cut in it or a goose.

Meh, and I simply disagree there, an honest difference of opinion we don't seem to be able to resolve.

You wanna ban these?

Yes, just as soon as guys in speedos start pulling guns out of their fanypacks before evading police on their supersweet bikes. I'm a biased observer here - I've had some experience with veils and ski masks. I admit to that fully. It's just that in this case, my bias doesn't seem to be approaching me from a non-sensical angle.

[davidMC1982]

Well, there's two lines of thought:

1) The government has no business telling people what they can/cannot wear. This I would largely agree with.

2) Being able to identify who you are interacting with is core to our society, if not for security then at least for good relations. This I would also tend to agree with, although with some caveats mostly related to (1) above.

Would I let you wear your gas mask? Lets consider a few possibilities. Firstly, you're a typical law abiding citizen. What difference does it make to me if you wear it or not? What difference does it make to wider society? I can't see that it makes any difference so why not let you wear it? Secondly, you're a bank robber. Would a law preventing you from wearing it make a difference to you? I doubt it. Would people be immediately more alert and suspicious of your behaviour? I guess so. Would a ban stop the crime or alter the consequences of the crime? I doubt it. In this case it doesn't seem to make a difference. Finally, you're a suicide bomber. Would a ban prevent you from wearing it? I doubt it, although it could make you more likely not to as you probably want to blend in as much as possible until you reach your target. So strangely, in this case, a ban could potentially make people less safe, although I'd still be inclined to assume it would make little difference.

Despite my general disagreement with the reasons for the ban, I'm still inclined to support it. Why? Because you wearing you gas mask would likely be an isolated incident with little consequence, whereas allowing the widespread wearing of the veil could represent a cultural shift that is to the detriment of wider society.

[The Grand Nudger]

C'mon man, you let one redneck wear his bio/chem getup and they'll all be wearin em.

lol.

[pocaracas]

Allow the widespread usage of the full dustbin on your head and soon the public can't tell honest dustbins from dishonest ones and sneak away from any of them.... result: more casualties when one dishonest dustbin decides to blow up his "underwear".

Of course, the same can be said of any backpack, or luggage item.

[The Grand Nudger]

-which is why you can't leave your luggage lying around in an airport. I mean, we treat a huge number of things in one way, for a specific reason - and I'm supposed to get weak in the knees when somebody brings up face-sheets? Nah, seen em (both the white and the black), don't care, won't be granting any exceptions. If any veiled ladies are reading, wondering what would happen to their "modesty" in my presence, with their now unveiled mug on full display- I can promise you - nothing.

[pocaracas]

-which is why you can't leave your luggage lying around in an airport. I mean, we treat a huge number of things in one way, for a specific reason - and I'm supposed to get weak in the knees when somebody brings up face-sheets? Nah, seen em (both the white and the black), don't care, won't be granting any exceptions. If any veiled ladies are reading, wondering what would happen to their "modesty" in my presence, with their now unveiled mug on full display- I can promise you - nothing.

Which shows a fundamental difference between the people who use bombs in something they can ditch and those who put them between themselves and their clothing.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, one of them is an effective combatant and the other is just a casualty. Sucks.