By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announced proposal to add a 28th Amendment to the Constitution which would essentially gut the Second Amendment and turn the right to keep and bear arms into a strictly-regulated government privilege.
According to Cal Matters, the proposal has gathered dust ever since the initial firestorm. As the group acknowledged this week, “no other states have joined his campaign.”
Democrat Newsom epitomizes the modern far-left “woke” gun prohibitionist who may offer lip service to the Second Amendment rights of his millions of Golden State constituents, but in reality wants to be rid of private firearms ownership.
Newsom denied from the start his proposed gun control amendment would essentially repeal the Second, but a look back proves otherwise. In his news release of June 8, 2023, Newsom’s office revealed:
”The 28th Amendment will permanently enshrine four broadly supported gun safety principles into the U.S. Constitution:
- Raising the federal minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21;
- Mandating universal background checks to prevent truly dangerous people from purchasing a gun that could be used in a crime;
- Instituting a reasonable waiting period for all gun purchases; and
- Barring civilian purchase of assault weapons that serve no other purpose than to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time – weapons of war our nation’s founders never foresaw.
“Additionally, the 28th Amendment will affirm Congress, states, and local governments can enact additional common-sense gun safety regulations that save lives.”
Translation: The entire proposal reeked of infringements on a right that “shall not be infringed.”
In his release last year, Newsom also said, “With gun violence claiming the lives of over 110 Americans a day, California’s nation-leading gun safety laws serve as a valuable blueprint for other states and Congress to save lives. California’s gun safety laws work. In its most recent scorecard, California ranked as the #1 state for gun safety by the Giffords Law Center, and according to the most recent data, the state saw a 37% lower gun death rate than the national average. According to the CDC, California’s gun death rate was the 44th lowest in the nation, with 9 gun deaths per 100,000 people – compared to 16.36 deaths per 100,000 nationally, 33.9 in Mississippi, 21.2 in Oklahoma, and 15.6 in Texas.”
This is where figures lie and liars figure, Second Amendment activists argue.
According to California’s Open Justice report for 2022, published by the state Department of Justice, the Golden State logged 2,206 homicides, the most recent year for which data is available.
The number was slightly higher than the body count posted for 2022 by Statista, which set the number of murders in California at 2,197.
Either figure represents the highest number of homicides of any other state in the U.S. for 2022, with Texas coming in second place, according to Statista, with 2,020 murders.
For Newsom to claim “California’s gun safety laws work” is, at best, wishful thinking. The state’s own data shows this to be a canard.
On top of the credibility problem, Newsom must deal with another embarrassing fact. As Cal Matters notes in its report, California’s “extensive gun control framework” is being dismantled by the courts, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June 2022 which established new guidelines under which gun rights cases must be adjudicated. States may no longer restrict gun ownership based on a means-end scheme, which invariably favors restrictions based on a compelling government interest.
Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, summed up Newsom’s proposed gun control amendment thusly: “They’ve come out of the closet. They’ve showed their true intent. They want to eradicate the Second Amendment, period.”
