Horror Clown Masks – Using them not always funny
Since we first wrote about the upcoming trend of scaring or pranking people using horror clown masks, things took a direction that can only be described as hype all over europe. Newspapers were filled with reports of horror clowns spreading fear (and anger) amongst numerous victims, with some even getting physically assaulted by clown mask wearers who took things a bit too far.
It was not hard to envisage the consequences: What once was a rather cool way of disguising and and doing some creative, entertaining videos became a mass phenomena that forced authorities all over europe to act and show the limits to those stepping over borders set by common sense. In the UK, the police adopted a zero tolerance policy to killer clowns (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/28/police-warn-of-zero-tolerance-approach-to-killer-clowns-ahead-of/) ahead of the halloween festivities, threatening wearers with up to 6 month in prison. In France, authorities in some hard hit communities decided to enforce a ban on wearing such masks. In Germany, authorities showed a relatively relaxed stance on this issue, as wearing killer clown masks is legal under most circumstances, while attacking others ain’t and can become dangerous to the mask wearer as well, as the example of a killer clown who was stabbed with a knife in Germany shows. While this was obviously a not very suiteable way of fending off a killer clown, other defensive measures might be legal as self defense, as a blog post written by a rather well known german lawyer shows here.
So, in short, some fun with killer clown masks is probably still ok, but overdoing it might get you a bloody nose or worse you or put you in front of a judge.