[umvi]

> Someone does something bad, everyone else gets punished ... It's true of "free" societies or authoritarian societies. Same tactics. Same terminologies.

I'm not so sure the reasons are the same in each case. A totalitarian regime obviously would love the opportunity to limit rights because it gives them more control over the populace.

But free societies often do so (in my opinion) because of the politician's fallacy[1]. There's a public outcry to "do something" so the politicians scramble to "do something". Like scramble to ban bump stocks after the Vegas domestic terrorist event even though a bump stock ban would have a near negligible effect on future domestic terrorist attacks.

Then again, it's hard to tell if the public outcry is because of the media intentionally stirring the pot, and if so, it's hard to tell if the media is intentionally stirring the pot because of some hidden political agenda or if they are just optimizing for clicks/eyeballs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism