Seriously man? You’re leading me to believe you’re arguing just for the sake of argument at this point.
You’ve gone from “guns should be as difficult to get as possible” to the sentiment “guns should not be allowed at all” (or at least confined to semi-automatic, which bans a tremendous amount of weapons, including the semi-auto pistol, the most popular self defense weapon) to now “gun control laws would violate second amendment rights”. So which is it?
If you’re going to go with the latter argument, the existing laws that involve background checks would also (and in fact do to an extent) disproportionately affect the Black community’s 2A rights. So are you willing to loosen existing background check policy/procedure to prevent this?
This line of logic has a lot of other implications, but I won’t berate the point.
1. I couldn’t tell you. In 2015 the NYT claimed 6/15 of recent mass shooters had “run ins with the law”. I can’t tell you if that means arrests or convictions or just contact leading to no action. Some studies claim things like “most did not have a criminal record”- which is vague language, perhaps intentionally in the sense that it highlights the very issue we’re talking about. If a record is sealed how would researchers even know it exists? I’m also not sure what “most” is either- 51%, 75% 99%?.
What often happens are these facts are stated without any reference or methodology- we have no idea how sealed records are considered, if they even thought to consider them at all. The fact then gets cited over and over again, or worse repeated without a citation. To further complicate things, terms are used very loosely or defined super specifically or not at all.
2) First, let’s remember keeping guns out of dangerous peoples hands also prevents many other gun-related crimes, not just school shootings. And school shootings account for a infinitesimal percent of gun related deaths and injury. These laws should ideally be applicable to all forms of gun violence.
3) Using data to help inform laws helps recognize and prevent unfair prejudices. While there are clearlt disparities in how the criminal justice system treats Black people, I’m not sure that fully accounts for the difference in crime rates between cases. If that was the case, then Asians would receive the most preferential treatment. But that’s not to say race is directly responsible- rather it’s the consequences of a prevalent set of life circumstances common to large swaths of one group. But that’s a whole different problem and discussion
4. Maybe it’s more common to see more police in urban schools is because more crime occurs in urban areas- both outside the school and inside. Is bias a factor, sure. But do you think the murder rate in urban areas is artificially high compared to rural/suburban areas? The police presence in schools is changing quite quickly in rural/suburban areas btw. Typically arresting students is at the bottom of the roles of a SRO. In fact in some places they can’t- that’s being debated in Mass right now. As I understand they are there primarily to promote safety, especially from outside the school, as well as serve as a mentor and a resource students can seek for help in difficult situations.
4. While white students disproportionally commit mass school shootings, are you aware that minority students commit a disproportionate number of individually-targeted shootings on school grounds? They also have a higher chance of being involved in gangs/gang violence.
There are a number of instances where certain races have disproportionately high rates of specific crimes. Like Black people commit 55% of murders yet are ~13% of the population. Meanwhile White men comprise nearly all community-targeted mass shootings (including school shootings) as well as accounting for 90% of registered sex offenders against children. Why? I wish I knew. Hispanic-Americans are by far most likely to be involved in gangs and gang-related crimes. Asian-Americans commit very few violent crimes but have a disparate amount of suicides.
5) Gun homicide is the leading cause of black men under 55. Black males are 10-20x more likely to be killed by gun homicide than their white counterparts. Most murder victims are murdered by someone of the same race. So more sophisticated background checks are not going to help save lives in the Black community?
And to be clear, there’s a difference of a juvenile record, say being caught with drugs or driving without a license or drinking alcohol, etc (common juvenile charges) versus more serious crimes involving violence or illegal weapons possession.
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