Newsom calls for national gun control

Ever in pursuit of the national spotlight, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday called for a 28th amendment to enshrine various gun control policies in the United States Constitution “to end America's gun violence crisis.”

“The 28th Amendment will enshrine in the Constitution common sense gun safety measures that Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and gun owners overwhelmingly support — while leaving the 2nd Amendment unchanged and respecting America’s gun-owning tradition,” said Newsom in a statement announcing the proposal.

We commend Newsom for reminding people about the value of the Constitution, but frankly have trouble believing this is much more than another stunt from the aspiring president.

For one, the governor’s proposal does indeed contain some ideas that are likely to poll well on their face, like “reasonable waiting periods” for gun purchases, but bundles them with a much more contentious proposal to ban the sale of “assault weapons,” which have their own definitional problems.

On the question of “assault weapons,” there’s a pretty significant national divide on whether banning future sales of them even makes sense. Polling released from Monmouth University in April of this year found that just 46% of those polled support such a ban, versus 49% opposed. Likewise, a majority (51%) of those polled by Gallup in 2019 opposed a law to “make it illegal to manufacture, sell or possess semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles.”

For Newsom and many leftleaning Americans in California, banning assault weapons might sound perfectly sensible, but one can’t forget California is just one of 50 states and much of the country thinks differently.

Second, it doesn’t take long to recognize that Newsom’s proposals are unlikely to fulfill the stated promise to “end America’s gun violence crisis.”

Newsom’s call for assault weapons bans, for example, ignores the reality that the vast majority of gun crimes don’t involve “assault weapons” or even rifles, but handguns.

Newsom’s call for universal background checks may sound sensible, but such checks only apply to law-abiding citizens, not criminals intent on committing crimes often purchased from the black market.

Likewise, Newsom’s call for raising the minimum age for purchasing weapons from 18 to 21 might stop some 18-20 year olds from doing bad things, but it will also deprive many 1820 year olds from being able to exercise their right to defend themselves in a country with hundreds of millions of guns in circulation.

And finally, Newsom is likely more motivated by short-term political considerations than by a desire to take up what could be a many decades-long battle to get a constitutional amendment through.

Newsom has tried to downplay his obvious interest in someday running for president of the United States. But it’s difficult to interpret actions like his ad campaigns against Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, his recent red state tour and now this as anything other than him trying to position himself as a prominent leader in national Democratic Party politics.

This editorial board isn’t impressed by Newsom’s proposal and we’re confident most of the rest of the country won’t be, either.