Gavin Newsom angry pointing

By Mark Oliva

Gun control politicians really are coming for America’s guns. There’s no denying it after California Gov. Newsom made his proposal for a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution official.

Gov. Newsom wants to export strict California gun control to the rest of America. He introduced a proposal for a Right to Safety — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution — that would strip Second Amendment rights from individuals and instead make the government the arbiter of which firearm “privileges” would be allowed.

That’s a recipe for disaster. California is more than just the canary-in-the coal mine for what happens when gun control politicians run rampant on rights without proper checks against abuse of authority. The state is also a harbinger for what happens when law-abiding citizens are stripped of their ability to lawfully defend themselves and more protections are afforded to criminals than to their victims.

The proposal was introduced by California state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer as Senate Joint Resolution 7. The resolution “calls on the U.S. Congress to call a constitutional convention under Article V of the Constitution of the United States for the purpose of proposing a constitutional amendment.”

The intent is to affirm that state and local governments can negate Second Amendment rights and write their own gun restrictions, creating a patchwork of varying gun control across the nation and impose a series of gun control restrictions that California already has in place which have proven impotent in stemming the tidal wave of crime.

California Crime

Just one day after dropping that brick on the feet of the American public, federal workers in San Francisco were instructed to work remotely due to rising crime. Traveling into the city has become so risky, that the Department of Health and Human Services issued a memo to employees stating, “In light of the conditions at the (Federal Building) we recommend employees … maximize the use of telework for the foreseeable future,” according to a New York Post report.

That office is in the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco, named for the Speaker Emerita. The building is also home to her district staff and U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) and Department of Transportation (DoT). It is unclear if the other departments issued similar warnings.

Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The “stay-away” memo reflects the worsening crisis of lawlessness in San Francisco and across California. The City by the Bay has descended in a “promised land of milk and fentanyl” as crime and drugs run unabated. Grocery and drug stores are shuttering over thefts and Gump’s, a luxury retailer that’s been in San Francisco for 166 years, warned that this might be their last year because of a “litany of destructive San Francisco strategies…” the retailer wrote to Gov. Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed.

Gov. Newsom, however, is unbothered by the downward spiral of the city where he was once mayor. He’s focused instead on his gun control 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would codify national age-based gun bans by raising the minimum age to buy a firearm from 18 to 21. It would also mandate universal background checks, which are unworkable without a national firearm registry, which is prohibited by federal law.

Gov. Newsom’s proposed Constitutional amendment would also implement a waiting period for all firearm purchases, immediately delaying the ability of law-abiding Americans to exercise their rights. It would also ban ownership of modern sporting rifles (MSRs), or as California’s antigun politicians call them, “assault weapons.”

Here’s the kicker. Gov. Newsom claims all this can be done “while leaving the Second Amendment intact.”

 

That’s dishonest – intellectually, politically or any other lens through which to view it. What Gov. Newsom is proposing, and California lawmakers are now considering sending to the U.S. Congress, is nothing short of gutting the Second Amendment.

California Control

These are flagrant civil rights violations. Denying rights to adults under the age of 21 relegates firearm ownership to a privilege – granted and rescinded at a government’s whim. The government would usurp the rights endowed by “our Creator” and assume that role.

Gov. Newsom would codify a national age-based gun ban – downgrading the Second Amendment to a second-class right. Free speech, free exercise of religion and free press would be preserved for adults at 18 but not the right to keep and bear arms. It is impossible for Gov. Newsom to claim that his proposal leaves the Second Amendment intact.

Gavin Newsom angry
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

Gov. Newsom would also institute a federal government watchlist for every firearm owner in America – simply for exercising a civil liberty. Universal background checks won’t work without a national firearm registry, which is prohibited under federal law. To follow a firearm from creation to destruction requires that the owner of that firearm be listed on a searchable national database. That’s also called a government watchlist. There would be no tolerance for watchlists of who attends a church, mosque or synagogue. Yet, Gov. Newsom doesn’t believe this requirement tramples rights.

Gov. Newsom believes that anyone wanting to exercise their right to lawfully purchase a firearm should be required to wait – without defining what that wait time is. California currently has a 10-day mandatory waiting period, despite the fact that every gun buyer in that state passes the same background checks and fills out the same Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) Form 4473 as a gun buyer in Virginia. Using the same First Amendment analogy, there would be no national appetite for telling Americans they must wait 10 days to “cool off” before making a redress against their government.

Gov. Newsom’s proposed ban on MSRs – or so-called “assault weapons” isn’t a ban in future sales. It’s a ticket for the government to seize lawfully-owned and possessed rifles. The text of the proposal is a “prohibition on the private possession” of these firearms. There are more than 24.4 million MSRs in circulation since 1990. They are the most-popular selling centerfire rifle in America. Gov. Newsom would institute not just a ban on selling these rifles but would necessitate a government seizure of them as well.

California Dreaming

Critics say this isn’t about actual gun control but political posturing. Call it gun control “peacocking” for when Gov. Newsom could potentially throw his name into the ring as a possible 2024 Democratic presidential nominee. That is, if President Joe Biden is unable to compete for re-election.

Gavin Newsom smile
(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

“Newsom right now is trying to appear to be a presidential as possible for either a 2024 or 2028 run at the White House,” said Washington-based candidate advisor Erica Taylor to the California Globe. “This amendment thing, it is pretty obvious to be a ploy. You put out a proposed amendment like this for attention. You don’t put out a press release on it after every little thing you do with it.”

Just over a year ago, Gov. Newsom “unexpectedly” dropped by the White House while President Biden was out of the country. He later told media he wouldn’t challenge President Biden in 2024. However, his unplanned White House visit caught the attention of many as him measuring the drapes and envisioning himself occupying the Oval Office.

The notion of all the drama of a 28th Amendment being nothing more than show might not be out of the question. After all, it is not much more than window dressing that would never garner national support.

 

Mark Oliva is Managing Director of Public Affairs for NSSF, The Firearm Industry Trade Association. 

72 COMMENTS

    • A right to safety would also impose on governments/police agencies a duty to protect each and every one of us, and would thus be exposed to suit if they failed to do so. Makes sense, right?

      The fact that federal law prohibits a gun registry doesn’t matter, as a Constitutional Amendment would nullify that law. In addition, I do not understand why a universal background check system necessarily implicates the creation of a registry. Whether or not you are prohibited from owning firearms can be ascertained without knowing whether you own or are buying guns. The portion of the 4473 is there solely to permit tracing and nothing to do with the background check itself. [I still do not know how efficacious tracing is; t would seem the feds are recalcitrant in releasing that data, except to say how many traces have been performed.)

      • Mark N, the Supreme ourt has already rules tht the police/government do NOT have a “duty to protect each and every one of us”.

        • He is aware of that, and he is in fact pointing out the conflict that would arise.

        • He is an attorney at law, and as such, he knows the value of correctly navigating our language, along with the attendant pitfalls of miscommunicating.

        • Nero, there are thousands of attorneys out there with no could about law. Especially, the use of force, criminal law, etc.
          It seems that Mark N is just one of them.

      • The Canucks spent a BILLION bucks on their registration system.

        Only to abandon it a few years ago as ‘totally worthless.’
        (Other than the Quebeckers, who are keeping a vestige of it alive in the hope that SOMEDAY it may do SOMETHING..)

  1. “…instead make the government the arbiter of which firearm “privileges” would be allowed.”

    That illogic is already the case: “the state” determining which weapons the populace may use to overthrow tyrannical government.

    Gotta give props to an anti-gunner who recognizes that to oppose/remove/do away with the constrictions of the Second Amendment, an amendment to the Constitution is necessary. This is the method the founders designed for altering the Constitution to reflect a change in the national conscientiousness.

  2. Not to Texas he ain’t. Even Democrats carry guns is Texas. A Texan will not be giving up his guns because some pansy-a$$ in Commiefornia says so. Newsom is a complete moron if he thinks that will happen in Texas.

    • Governor hair-gel has already bent the knee to China. He wants the rest of the country to join the “China Miracle” of a shrinking economy and rising unemployment without a welfare safety net.

  3. If newsob did not have an audience filled with Gun Control History illiterates he would not be talikng.

  4. At least he is honest about his intentions vs the whole stupid garbage of “not wanting to take your guns.”

    Anyone else curious if the state would get a carve out from the whole constitutional “right to safety?”

    Oh, and to those who say that this would make 2A a second class citizen to other rights I’d say “until they come for those too.”

  5. The women in the U.S., including many Republican Women, are madder than hell and hell bent to vote out the jackbooted Republicans that made them modern day sex slaves with all the abortion bans (just as the German Nazi’s did under Hitler).

    Sweeping changes will occur if the Republican Jackboots are voted out of power and those changes will include sweeping new gun control laws as well as the overturning of the German Nazi style bans on abortion. It would also include new laws outlawing Republican Jackboots from banning voting by mail, by computer, and the deliberate closing of polling places in working class districts, destroying voting drop off boxes, as well as asinine restrictions on registering to vote.

    In Ohio, the Republican Stormtroopers, who tried to trash the right to amend the Ohio Constitution in a Hitlerite style power grab suffered a humiliating defeat in a Red State (Ohio). The Jackboots now know they went to far on the abortion issue.

    If the jackbooted Republican stormtroopers are swept from power in 2024 sweeping changes will finally make the U.S. a civilized country to live in with European style gun laws and European style Universal Health Care, both long overdue in the U.S.

    Expect new gun control laws long overdue like Registration, Universal Background Checks, Federal Red Flag Laws, Safe Storage Laws, waiting periods and heavy restrictions on weapons of war.

    By the way all of us Socialists are hoping they let Trump run for office again as it will be a humiliating and sweeping defeat of a deraigned tyrant who tried to overthrow the U.S. Government in a 1923 Hitlerite style beer hall putsch.

    • No.
      You socialists may be hoping they let Trump run.
      But they are afraid of him winning so much so they are making up BS indictments in an effort to stop him.
      Here in the free world, we would call that election interference.
      Just like the Democrat party did in 2020 with the suppression of the Hunter laptop from hell reporting. Polls have shown Democrats would of voted differently had they known about the laptop. So, in a sense, yes the election was in fact stolen from Trump. Just not the way we would think it would.
      When Trump wins in 2024 against campaign from the basement Joe, tell us, will you socialists resort to the violence we saw during his inauguration but on a nation wide scale?

    • “The women in the U.S. … vote out the jackbooted Republicans that made them modern day sex slaves with all the abortion bans …”

      Also known as “allowing the citizens to democratically vote on the laws which shall govern them as provided in their state constitutions.”

      “In Ohio, the Republican Stormtroopers, who tried to trash the right to amend the Ohio Constitution in a Hitlerite style power grab …”

      Also know as “allowing the citizens to democratically vote on the laws which shall govern them as provided in the state constitution.”

      “Sweeping changes will occur if the Republican Jackboots are voted out of power and those changes will include …”

      … unconstitutional and unlawful infringements on the rights of all Americans, while allowing them no say in these matters, imposed upon them by government force of a fascist single-party state.

      Sounds familiar … unable to quite put my finger on it … can Not See the answer in past history …

      • To the Man with no Brains

        quote————Also know as “allowing the citizens to democratically vote on the laws which shall govern them as provided in the state constitution.”——–quote

        Once again your “Man with no Brains” moniker belies your lack of grey matter between your simian skull.

        In reality the Republican ploy to require a 60% majority was not based on popular consent or desire (quite the opposite) but was designed to subvert democracy by making it almost impossible to pass a Constitutional Amendment now and in the future on any subject. Now what part of this do you not understand Jethro???? It’s obvious you knew nothing about what was going on in Ohio.

        • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD. First, the Republicans had nothing to do with there “60%” (actually it is 66%) requirement to pass a Constitutional Amendment. It was our FOUNDING FATHERS. The Republican Party was not founded until 1849.
          Second, the article outlining the amendment process reads as follows: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”
          Third, the Founding Fathers intentionally made is difficult to amend the Constitution to insure that it was done in a contemplative manner, rather than willy nilly experiments in populism.
          Fourth, this country IS NOT a democracy. It is a democratic republic. Don’t you have any idea of what the difference is? If not I can explain it to you. But better yet, if you read the Federalist Papers and the AntiFederalist Papers, you just might get the idea. (I doubt it as I am sure you would not want to read those essays as they conflict with your totalitarian control freak ideas).

    • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD FINALLY, you admit to being a “socialist” and with a capital “S” no less.
      Oh, there are going to be “sweeping changes”, but they won’t be the “sweeping changes” you Leftists want. The only stormtroopers are yours jackbooted ANTIFA and BLM thugs.
      We Conservative Republicans are for true equal rights, with no one’s rights being more equal than anyone else’s.
      We intend to give control of our lives back to “We the People” as the Constitution intended.

      • To Walter the Beverly Hillbilly

        So you Moron you just wrote off with the wave of your hand 24,000 plus people who died of gun violence.

        And you idiot studies show you are way more likely (35 times) to have a suicide in your home if there is a gun present which again you ignore with the wave of the hand, that’s another 24,000 plus people. You are one sick deraigned nut case.

        https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html

        • dacian, the DUNERHEAD., Not hardly, Little Fella. Those deaths are quite a bit less than you Lefties like to portray. The problem is you Leftists just love to inflate your stats to conflate your position. It is one of your favorite tactics. I have a number of guns in my home, all locked up when not in use. One is LOADED as it is my self defense firearm here in the house but also in a safe which can be quickly accessed. Funny but no one in my household has ever even attempted suicide.

          How about all the knives that are in your kitchen drawers? I’ll bet of all those suicides, there were kitchen knives in their draws. How about all the people who committed suicide with OTC drugs?
          As to your “link” it is a well known anti-gun propaganda source and just as full of donkey dust as you are.

        • Ah, the ‘gun violence’ propaganda term used again by a person that really doesn’t want to acknowledge the ROOT causes of problems in the world… (Hint, FIND A MIRROR, and maybe use it when you’re in a room with your other socialist buddies.)

          Dacian, let’s say you were to ban Ford vehicles, (and people actually quit using them,) you would see traffic accident statistics drop DRASTICALLY for FORD VEHICLES..

          Of course, the statistics would take an equal jump up for ALL OTHER VEHICLE makes still on the road.

          Just like suicide rates in Japan, but you don’t want to talk about THAT because it blows your argument right out of the water…

  6. Gavin Newsome should first disarm all of his bodyguards. You kow, to show “good faith”.

  7. All he needs is for 33 more states to sign on to a constitutional convention

    … and then 38 to ratify any amendment.

    Yeah … no.

        • “Debunking anti-2nd Amendment Article V myths — ”

          Thanx for the link. Hadn’t thought about COS is some time.

          The idea that a COS could be restricted to a single matter still depends on the Convention convening, and deciding the rules of procedure. Even if all the convening had coordinated their petitions to agree to a single issue, the process to proceed to writing and voting is, as yet, undetermined. Given that even pro-2A advocates cannot agree on 2A matters, it is problematic to believe a COS would generate more cooperation. The JBS speculation regarding a COS is as valid as any speculation that claims JBS is fomenting lies. Nobody knows what will happen. QED.

          In the end, the idea that a COS could produce an amendment, and it be ratified, leaves the nation where it is now: refusal to abide by a duly ratified amendment. The same society, and politico/legal system would exist, as before a new Second Amendment.

  8. Perhaps instead of tackling gun control on a national level, Gavin Newsollini should look into the reasons over 500,000 tax paying citizens have fled the state since 2019. But heck, what do I know as we escaped in 2022.

  9. Well, I’ll oppose passage of it if it ever gets that far

    But at least it’s an tacit admission that the laws they want/have are unconstitutional and require an amendment

  10. A Constitutional Convention, eh? That brings to mind:

    These two Pepsi and Coke delivery guys walk into a diner…

    Why can’t we be friends? Really? When the neo-Marxists want to destroy this country at the expense of millions of lives, just like their ancestors did in Asia and Eastern Europe last century, at the expense of some 100+ millions. Really?

  11. I think that many will oppose it… somewhere between 400 Million and 1.1 BILLION, the estimated number of privately owned firearms in the US.
    They might confiscate a small percentage until a coordinated resistance takes hold, then it’s gloves off once the videos start making it online.

      • “Perhaps we will all have a “Null-A” moment, and coordination isn’t required.”

        Saw what you did there; nice, really nice.

    • To your point, confiscation presents extreme risk to confiscators. So, other actions will achieve the same goals with less risk. Obviously, the critical expendable in the equation is ammunition. Once laws pass banning specific firearms, it’s an easy step to banning the ammunition feeding those weapons. Even handloaders can be denied access to specific components. Eventually all sources dry up. Rocks make better self-defense tools than firearms without ammunition.

      • “To your point, confiscation presents extreme risk to confiscators.”

        Been thinking about that…..

        Western European nations don’t have government permission to simply buy and keep firearms. Many of those nations cook right along (especially the northern nations), with government forceful subjugation of the populace. Many are tourist meccas for Americans.

        Does a lack of guarantee of a personal right of self-armament really mean government tyranny such as seen in the old Warsaw Pact, or Stalin’s Soviet Union? Or Kim Bad Singer’s Korean paradise?

        It has been 78yrs since the end of WW2. Yet, we see what we call “Socialist” governments not terrorizing the citizenry in Western European countries; not creating the hellish conditions we all seem to fear for America.

  12. I understand Gavin’s parents left California for Florida. Bought a house in Ft. Meyers. One registered as a Republican. The other, No Party Affiliation. (Independent) What does that tell you about their son?

  13. Progressive extremists not only want to decide what firearms “privileges” they will allow you to have, they are also determined to censor what you can say and what you can read. They reserve to themselves the sole right to determine which political candidates you can choose from, and the sole right to exercise authority over your children – their bodily integrity, their morality, and their mental health. They want to decide how much money they’ll allow you to keep, what cars you should be allowed to choose from, where you can live, what you can eat, what kind of kitchen appliances you can get, whether or not you should be allowed to have air conditioning…the list goes on and on.

    Liberal extremist politicians and bureaucrats are abusing their powers (which actually derive from us) to use the jackbooted police power of government agencies to enforce their will. There’s nothing “representative” about out government today. It’s a straight up authoritarian, centrally directed tyranny.

    It damn sure isn’t a representative Constitutional republic.

  14. The problems happening in Calif is all These Idiots Fault and the Fault of the Dumbshit Voters. Who are now Complaining about the failed Gov’t Response. Wake up. Repeal Prop 47. The Gov should step up, does he? no. Worthless

  15. Gavin Newsome is a dictator and communist. I dont think this will get him in to the WH. His bullshlt is the type of political stupidity that finally starts civil wars.

  16. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the vice president steps away, Gavin Newsom is placed in the vice presidents office, and Joe Biden “decides” not to run next year.

  17. “Here’s the kicker. Gov. Newsom claims all this can be done “while leaving the Second Amendment intact.””

    He actually believes that.

    When the ‘Bruen’ decision was announced, Newsome had a press conference where he stated, with a literal sneer in his voice, that the 2A was, and I quote : “A so-called right.”

    The 2A he believes in is a collective right, not an individual right. He believes that because he is a ‘Progressive’, which is a fascist prettied-up to be something pure and nice, but is actually pure fascism.

    It is the literal manifestation of “Tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth”… 🙁

  18. I think an accurate, Presidential campaign slogan for Newsome would read as follows: “Gruesome Newsom: Bringing The Miseries of California To The Rest Of The Nation”.

  19. Anyone bother to as Newsome how well his gun control is working in CA? Or how any of his leftist policies have improved the lives of the taxpayers and actual citizens in his state?
    A few of his fellow limousine liberal elitist friends and Hollywood types have made money, but there must be a reason U-Haul has to pay people to drive their rental trucks back to Cali.
    Ban restrict, guns all day long. Guess what. Not 1 criminal or thug is going to register their guns or hand them over to the police. Demand confiscation and as has been seen in other countries, compliance will be limited and not very successful. Businesses closing, residents who can getting out, rampant crime and filth. But it is somehow the fault of nefarious and nebulous forces from outside the state. Those mean, evil, racist, homo/trans phobic deplorables in flyover country must be doing phenomenal business smuggling guns and drugs into California.

  20. First, this is not a fast process. It would take several years to ratify and even if it were ratified it would be invalidated as soon as it was because a constitutional amendment can’t be used to infringe or remove or invalidate another constitutional right of the first original 10 and can’t contradict any of the first 10 – ‘shall not be infringed’ is a real thing for many reasons but one of them is that its, in effect, an absolute order of the constitution that the government can’t infringe it by adding a government created/granted amendment.

    Second, a constitutional amendment can’t be used to infringe or remove or invalidate another constitutional right of the first original 10. This is by design as the first 10 are not granted by government but rather are natural and inherent of the people individually and are pre-existing the constitution and supersede all others added after the first 10 – neither the government can infringe or remove or invalidate what is not theirs. This is the reason that, despite chances to do so in the past, that the second amendment has never been ‘repealed’, because they can’t and that’s what they are not telling you. They are acting like the constitution is this thing they can change any time they want to match what they government wants, like they have authority over the first 10 rights to affect them as they please to some way invalidate them but in reality they don’t as they do not belong to government but rather each person individually and inherently. There is a reason Justice Thomas said that the second amendment is not a second class right.

    • .40 cal, do you have a source for “a constitutional amendment can’t be used to infringe or remove or invalidate another constitutional right of the first original 10 and can’t contradict any of the first 10?”

      The term is “entrenched Bill of Rights,” but I can’t find any information to support your statement. All of the sources I find state that the first 10 amendments can be changed through the amendment process.

      • changed…is not the same as infringe or remove or invalidate. The second is different from the rest of the 10, it specifically orders ‘shall not be infringed’. any ‘change’ to it can not remove or invalidate or infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms. There is a source for it, ill need to look it up again…but basically this has been tried before by different manner either as another amendment or change or removal of the 2A and it fails because of this specific order of ‘shall not be ‘infringed’

        • as for all the first 10, its basically the same way because none of them belong to government but to each individual inheretly and separately and they were pre existing before the constitution and the first 10 are simply codifying them in writing not granting them and government can not take away rights they did not grant because they do not belong to government. The first 10 uniquely belong to the people individually.

        • Appreciate it. All of the sources that I’ve located so far, go like this:

          Can the Bill of Rights be changed altered or repealed?

          “An entrenched bill of rights cannot be amended or repealed by a country’s legislature through regular procedure, instead requiring a supermajority or referendum; often it is part of a country’s constitution, and therefore subject to special procedures applicable to constitutional amendments.” — https://legalknowledgebase.com/can-the-united-states-bill-of-rights-be-amended

  21. So-called “red flag laws”, which are really gun confiscation laws, are expected to be debated by the Tennessee legislature thanks to the Republican Governor, Bill Lee. Adopting so-called “Extreme Risk Protection Laws” are unnecessary and implicate no fewer than 4 separate provisions of the Bill of Rights.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMPVUBjYy2s

  22. Strap this greasy haired son of a bitch into the back set of one of San Francisco’s infamous driverless cars and enter it in a demolition derby!

  23. It is not meant to be serious.
    It is nothing more than a presidential campaign promise that will go nowhere.

  24. Newsom has a very loyal following in the gay community. And they will vote for him because he supported h0m0sexual marriage. Including h0m0sexual and atheist gun owners.

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