AOC: Juvenile Background Checks in New Bipartisan Gun Legislation Could be Racist

Yesterday, The Floridian reported on the bipartisan gun legislation that the Senate announced yesterday. The proposal was announced by lawmakers such as Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NY), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), and others.

The press release for the bill stated: “Today, we are announcing a commonsense, bipartisan to protect America’s children, keep our schools safe, and reduce the threat of violence across our country," said the lawmakers.

The announcement goes on to mention that “Families are scared, and it is our duty to come together and get something done that will help restore their sense of safety and security in their communities. Our plan increases needed mental health resources, improves school safety and support for students, and helps ensure dangerous criminals and those who are adjudicated as mentally ill can’t purchase weapons.” The announcement concludes, “Most importantly, our plan saves lives while also protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans. We look forward earning broad, bipartisan support and passing our commonsense proposal into law.”

Included within that bipartisan framework, the proposal offers “Support for State Crisis Intervention Orders” which provides “resources to states and tribes to create and administer laws that help ensure deadly weapons are kept out of the hands of individuals whom a court has determined to be significant danger to themselves or others,” and it has caused some Republicans to say that’s just another way to say “Red Flag Laws.”

However, that is not what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is complaining about when it comes to this bill. She is worried about the effects “racism” will have on the Under 21 Enhanced Review Process part of the bill. The bill states that “For buyers under 21 years of age, requires an investigative period to review juvenile and mental health records, including checks with state databases and local law enforcement.”

When asked about this by Eric Michael Garcia, a columnist for the Independent and MSNBC, AOC stated, “I want to explore the implications of that (the review process) and how specifically it’s designed and tailored.” She went on to mention that “After columbine, we hired thousands of police officers into schools and while it didn’t prevent many of the mass shootings that we’ve seen now, it has increased the criminalization of teens in communities like mine…Because what people are blaming on mental health are really deeper issues of violent misogyny and white supremacy.”

The thread of tweets can be found below: