California Gov. Gavin Newsom rocked the boat last week. In and of itself, rocking the boat isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, the boat needs to be rocked.
Yet Newsom did it with a proposal that has less chance than a bowl of ice cream at a fat guy convention is rock it in a way that’s meant to make him the darling of the media without him having to do much of anything.
Don’t get me wrong, though. He actually wants this amendment of his to pass. He likely knows it won’t, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to see it happen.
And as NSSF’s Larry Keane notes, it’s about exporting California’s own failures to the rest of the nation.
These ideas are already law in California which means Gov. Newsom wants to export his failing policies to the rest of the nation. He doesn’t get it that no one else wants them or that he just admitted his gun control ideas are unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. Otherwise, why would he need a 28th amendment?
Make America California?
Gov. Newsom’s proposal reveals his autocratic, “big government” tendencies. The Declaration of Independence made clear that unalienable rights are endowed by our Creator. The Constitution’s Bill of Rights – the first 10 Amendments – reminds the government that those rights belong to the “people,” not the government. Gov. Newsom wants to flip that on its head.
He claims his proposed 28th Amendment wouldn’t interfere with Second Amendment rights but that’s just not true. Newsom would once again relegate the Second Amendment to a second-class right by barring adults at 18, who are fully vested in all their other Constitutional rights, from fully exercising and expressing their Second Amendment rights. Gov.
Newsom’s proposed 28th Amendment wouldn’t respect the Second Amendment. It would trample all over it.
Let’s remember that California has a ton of problems, including a whole lot more active shooter incidents than we see in most other states.
“But California has a lower violent crime rate than most states,” some might point out, and they’re not wrong. I’d love to say that it’s not true, but that’s what the numbers tell us. Without evidence those numbers are wrong, we have to acknowledge it.
What the numbers don’t tell us is why it’s low.
Gun control advocates like to point to the state’s gun control as the reason why. Newsom is one of those so inclined and we all know it.
The problem is that California has a lot of other things going on that may well impact violent crime. For example, the median household income in the state is way above the norm for the rest of the nation, which means fewer people would be inclined to engage in violent crime as a way to make ends meet.
As a result, it’s difficult to say definitively whether gun control has been the reason for a lower violent crime rate than elsewhere or if it’s some other policy.
That makes a difference.
But despite the most extensive gun control regulations in the nation, this is a state that saw two major mass shootings within 48 hours earlier this year. It’s also a state where the homicide rate, while relatively low, is still well above what you find in relatively pro-gun states like New Hampshire, Maine, and Idaho.
If these policies were so great, why do we see states without them boasting significantly lower homicide rates?
So yeah, California’s gun control scheme is a failure and Newsom wants to foist it onto the rest of us, all to advance his own political career.
The upside again, though, is that it’s not going to happen.
