Three weeks ago in Oklahoma, a local school board member accused children who come to school maskless of attempted murder.
“It’s just not OK for kids to commit murder by coming to school without a mask,” Linda Sexton, a member of the Norman Public Schools board, said in a meeting. “And when it comes down to it, it’s possible. They will cause a death of another child because they come to school without a mask. That’s not OK.”
Sexton’s take, while possibly eyebrow-popping, was neither fresh nor an outlier. Some politicians, school teachers and healthcare workers, just to name a few, have slammed the maskless for killing others. Back in January, for example, Iowa state Sen. Joe Bolkam, a Democrat, asked the GOP leadership, which recommended but did not require masks, “Are you trying to kill us and the people that come to this Capitol? … More people are going to die.”
With people this torqued up over COVID, for which more than half the country has been vaccinated and which has a 99.7 percent survival rate, we should not be surprised by what recently happened in Chicago.
Last week, according to CBW Chicago, a maskless man walked into a liquor store and was confronted by an armed security guard about his lack of a mask.
After an argument, the victim left. But he soon returned, and when he did, the guard, Chester Holmes, a four-time convicted felon who illegally had the gun, pulled his weapon. He then shot the customer.
The victim fell outside the store, and after a moment, Holmes shot him twice more.
The victim was shot in the stomach, arm, and leg, and prosecutors said surgeons removed part of his intestines in the effort to save his life.
The lawyer for the security guard maintained his client acted in self-defense when he shot a customer three times.
The customer, attorney Jonathan Feldman argued, was “putting others’ lives at risk by not wearing a [COVID] mask.”
“This is obviously going to be a self-defense case,” the lawyer continued, according to CBW Chicago. The case “basically [involves] a customer who’s unruly, who wants to put other lives at risk” by not wearing a face covering. Feldman maintained that Holmes simply “reacted in self-defense” to a man who wasn’t wearing a mask.
The judge declined to grant a request for bail.
Prosecutors have charged Holmes with attempted murder, aggravated battery by discharging a firearm, and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon.
As the wesbite BroBible.com noted of the incident, with more than a little understatement, “Unfortunately, a story of a man shooting another for not wearing a mask isn’t a surprising one in the year 2021.”
The surprising thing may be that it hasn’t happened more often.
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