Unless you’ve spent the last day under a rock, you’ve probably heard about California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed constitutional amendment.

To be fair, it certainly appears Newsom has finally come to terms with the idea that many of the proposals he wants are unconstitutional, so there’s that.

But his idea to amend the Constitution ignores the fact that, well, it’s just not likely to happen considering the amendment process.

Yet let’s say he could pull it off somehow. Let’s say his proposal got the legs and actually happened. What then?

Well, as the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms notes, it’ll be regular, law-abiding folks who will pay the price.

California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed adding an additional Constitutional amendment to restrict gun rights, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms says the proposal ‘reeks of infringement’ on Second Amendment rights.

“California Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed 28^th Amendment is a blatant attempt to eradicate individual rights from the Constitution, demonstrating just how far the anti-gun-rights mindset is willing to go in an effort to foist its prohibition agenda on the American public, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA),” said Thursday.

Newsom’s proposal, while not repealing the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, would raise the federal minimum age to obtain a firearm from 18 to 21, mandate universal background checks to purchase firearms, create a waiting period for all gun purchases, and ban so-called “assault weapons.”

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“Newsom’s proposal reeks of infringement on Second Amendment rights,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “He wants gun controls permanently enshrined, while claiming these measures ‘will respect the country’s gun-owning tradition protected by the Second Amendment.’ That is so self-contradictory it is laughable. If he truly respected this nation’s tradition of private gun ownership, he wouldn’t attack it by pushing this nonsense.”

Of course, it’s hard for me not to completely agree with Gottlieb on this, so I won’t. He’s right.

Newsom has never shown the slightest hint of respecting anyone’s Second Amendment rights, so the idea that he’s trying to do that in any way is laughable at best.

But it’s not about that, is it?

For a long time, the debate regarding the Constitution itself has generally been in one of two camps. One was that the Second Amendment permitted gun control because of the phrase “well-regulated militia.” That’s an inaccurate interpretation of the term and one that’s falling on deaf ears in the Supreme Court.

The other camp are those who wanted an outright repeal of the Second Amendment.

What Newsom is doing is proposing something a little different, something he thinks can garner broader support and make him look reasonable by comparison.

Yet if gun control is about public safety, it should be noted that absolutely none of his proposals will make the public safer. Banning AR-15s won’t stop mass shootings, nor will it reduce the bloodshed from them. People forget that the deadliest school shooting on American soil, Virginia Tech, involved a killer using two handguns.

Universal background checks don’t really do anything to keep criminals from getting guns since they’re mostly getting them via the black market or theft anyway, and waiting periods don’t stop bad actors, they just stop people who need a gun for protection.

Raising the age to buy a firearm isn’t going to do much else, either. After all, the federally mandated age to buy a handgun is 21, yet how many under that age are found with guns each and every day?

So no, this won’t make anyone safer, and the CCRKBA is right to blast Newsom for proposing it in the first place.