If there’s anything greasier about Newsom than his gelled-up hair, it’s his penchant for gun control. Newsom has proposed a 28th Amendment to implement gun control and has called for an Article V Convention of States to get that amendment going.

We have covered Newsom’s shenanigans in depth in the past, but in case you missed it, here is a summary of what the proposal is about:

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.

The definition of “assault weapon” is silly-putty and is thus contentious, but Newsom’s definition is funny because he defines them using an alleged sole function that they, “serve no other purpose than to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time.” The function of a tool really depends on the user, but Newsom assumes that the tool itself has only one purpose here and the user can think of nothing else to use that tool for.

The gratis “weapons of war our nation’s founders never foresaw” is insulting to the Founding Fathers; they didn’t include limits on arms precisely because they knew they couldn’t foresee where things would go, and they wanted The People to have access to modern arms. That’s why everything from tasers to repeating rifles to arms that haven’t been invented yet are covered by the Second Amendment, much like modern means of communication and message encryption are protected by the First and Fourth Amendments respectively.

Setting aside the inanity of the 28th Amendment proposal, there’s something revealing that just happened in California that shows what exactly this is all about. The Firearms Policy Coalition, which Newsom’s office has called a “Merchant of Death,” caught this important amendment and revealed it on their Twitter/X feed:

The California resolution for an anti-gun constitutional amendment has been amended to say that it wants to ban "the sale, loan, or transfer of assault weapons" (instead of "private possession") only for "private civilians": https://t.co/qwRm97ciKH pic.twitter.com/cBZhnHKfTc

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) September 2, 2023

You can see the modified language yourself under the “Compare Versions” tab on the California Legislative Information website.

(b) Impose, as a matter of national policy, the following firearms regulations and prohibitions: (1) universal background checks as a prerequisite to purchase or acquisition of a firearm, (2) a prohibition on sales, loans, or other transfers of firearms to those under 21 years of age, subject to limited exceptions, (3) a minimum waiting period after the purchase or acquisition of a firearm before that firearm may be delivered to the buyer or acquirer, and (4) a prohibition on the p̶r̶i̶v̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶s̶e̶s̶s̶i̶o̶n̶ sale, loan, or transfer of assault weapons and other weapons of w̶a̶r̶;̶ war to private civilians; and be it further

You read that right; California is exempting police and government officials from their proposed “assault weapons” ban. Going back to Newsom’s hysterical rhetoric, why would California want to exempt the government from a ban on weapons that, “serve no other purpose than to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time?” Why would “weapons of war our nation’s founders never foresaw” be necessary in the hands of the government when Fresno isn’t Fallujah? 

This language also reveals the degradation that Newsom wants: turning free and equal citizens into meek and subordinate “civilians.” The choice of the word “private civilian” is also telling because government officials are derived from the people, so they will be in a new class of “public civilian” exempt from all bans.

There’s a quote attributed to libertarian writer Claire Wolfe:

When only cops have guns, it’s called a “police state.”

That’s what Newsom and his band of California Democrats have openly disclosed they’re marching towards with their 28th Amendment proposal and the call for an Article V Convention of States.