California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, issued this on Twitter:
And thus once again we are faced with the question of just how stupid, civically ignorant and gullible an American politician thinks the public is. I can understand why Newsom might believe that the answer is “incredibly stupid, civically ignorant and gullible,” because someone like him was elected governor by Californians. However, there is hope that he is mistaken.
To begin with the most important point, his proposal is pure grandstanding. The chances of any Constitutional amendment being passed are vanishingly small, but the chances of that mess being passed are zero. It is unethical to make proposals that are impossible: call it the “Imagine” fraud. The cynical and manipulative individual putting forth the plan is seeking approval and support for a sentiment that is entirely useless and cruelly misleading, at least for the fools silly enough to take it seriously.
This “amendment” is a sop to the “Do something!” crowd. See? Gavin is doing something! He’s proposing a solution that is absolutely impossible, and that wouldn’t be a solution even if it somehow came to pass!
In addition to the cynical nature of proposing an impossible solution, what Newsom is proposing is an abuse of the amendment process, essentially using the Constitution to pass legislation so the legislation can probably never be repealed. It also isn’t what he says it is: a collection of “four gun safety freedoms.” How are any of those provisions “freedoms”? Newsom is casting a fake amendment in terms evoking the First and Second Amendments though it doesn’t involve “freedoms” at all. That’s OK: most of the amendments are about rights, not freedoms, but his using the term in this context should set off everyone’s snake-oil salesman alarms.
Then there are the details. Raising the minimum age to 21 for gun purchases is self-evidently unconstitutional; a federal court case in Virginia (Fraser v. ATF) recently struck down federal law banning 18 to 20 year olds from owning handguns. Supposedly such restrictions would reduce suicides in that age bracket, or so its advocates claim. As with so much of the “science” that support progressive restrictions on basic rights, the support for this contention is dubious.
Universal background checks are another canard. Background checks are required for all legal gun sales already, except private sales. Having a law requiring individuals selling guns to other individuals won’t make criminals who buy and sell guns suddenly change their practices. The law will not effect the exact individuals who abuse firearms most often: criminal. It will be impossible to enforce, and enforcement will usually occur after a crime.
Just nine states and Washington, D.C., have waiting periods before people can purchase at least some types of firearms. The federal government has no waiting period. The restrictions can give authorities more time to conduct background checks and keep impulsive, emotional people from immediately accessing weapons they might use to kill themselves or others, claims the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
It also can delay an individual fearing imminent harm from an impulsive, emotional person from having a means of defending herself.
As for banning “assault weapons,” that provision is void for vagueness. The current ATF director couldn’t even define what one is. The theory here is that eliminating semi-automatic rifles will reduce mass shootings, but the data on that assumption is equivocal.
But discussing the details of Newsom’s amendment is silly, since it cannot happen. Nonetheless, one California pundit says that “Gavin Newsom’s new campaign for a 28th Amendment is the most important political idea in the country today.” How can an Amendment that cannot and will not be passed even be worth discussing, never mind “the most important political idea in the country”?
Well, it depends on how stupid, civically ignorant and gullible the American public is.
Ethics Alarms 
1) Legislation via the Constitution is the same mistake of the Prohibition amendment.
2) “Raising the minimum age to 21 for gun purchases is self-evidently unconstitutional” Yet, were the amendment to be passed, it would then be very constitutional.
Yes, and yes, of course.
But objecting to a proposed amendment as being unconstitutional seems like a non-argument…?
That was going to be my point.
The age limit provision is the only part of his statement that could make sense as written.
You will never see an actual proposed amendment that simply says “universal background checks.” You need about three paragraphs to say what is meant here. Otherwise, if I am selling a gun, what is to prevent me from doing the background check?
Same with “reasonable” waiting periods. That sounds like the courts talking. That is not how you right legislation or an Amendment.
Again, “assault weapons” is undefined. If the Amendment gives Congress the authority to enact legislation to carry out the Amendment, this provision could effective repeal the Second Amendment.
This proposal is so bad that I have to give Newsom the benefit of the doubt and assume he is only trying to outline what an Amendment would look like. With that in mind, I have three reactions:
1) It is good that he understands that what he wants would require an amendment (too many people in Congress don’t seem to get this (think the legislators who wanted to enshrine Roe v. Wade in Legislation (there are some on the Right who are equally ignorant))).
2) The substance of his proposal presents absolutely NOTHING new when it comes to substance; these terms have been around FOREVER.
3) A truly serious proposal about something that has been in the public debate for so long should contain the actual language of the proposed amendment. This is not some new idea that needs to be mulled over. If that side wants an amendment, it should draft the language, so we can debate THAT.
However, if they did, I think it would be apparent that we are really talking about legislation.
-Jut
It is indeed, but it also needs to be said, because Constitutional principles govern the reasonableness of amendments. The idea of amendments is to make the Constitution better and more effective in protecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If one actually reduces liberty, it’s goes against what the document was created to do. That’s the reason Prohibition failed, in part: that amendment reduced liberty. Newsom’s fatuous designation of these as “freedoms” is his sneaky way of trying to get around that.
Right you are, in every respect. Newsom is counting on people who know nothing of the Constitution, but he need not have shamed himself and all thinking voters by using this obvious and impossible ploy. He could have offered free cheese (American slices or cheddar sticks) and gotten the same positives from the unthinking. Instead he shows himself to be just another operator, hell bent on election regardless of how he gets there, and willing to risk his decency in the process.
When did we come to this point? Where the Gavin Newsoms of the county are the primary ones aspiring to public office? I’m open to some history here. Presidential seems fairly obvious to me, but for Congress I’d have to check on when this kind of behavior became so ubiquitous.
It’s perfectly reasonable to argue that the downside of Newsom’s proposal outweighs the upside, but I don’t see “it’ll never happen” as an argument. The same could have been said only a few years before we got women’s suffrage, integration, or gay marriage. And the fact that it’s being proposed as a constitutional amendment means that constitutional arguments against it are irrelevant. I don’t see this a unethical unless Newsom is only playing to an audience and doesn’t believe what he says. I don’t think that’s the case.
Women’s suffrage, integration, or gay marriage only required a shift of public opinion to become feasible, and all three involved expanding civil rights. No Bill of Rights provision has ever been amended, and only one amendment ever took away rights, and that one had to be repealed. The resistance to reducing the extent of any right exceeds what the process for creating a new amendment will bear. I understand the “as long as it is theoretically possible, it’s possible” tautology, but the kind of near unanimity required for an amendment like that one would be like passing an amendment declaring abortion a right (thus declaring that the unborn had no rights)
We waste too much time arguing about solutions that are theoretical, practically impossible or near to it, and too many hucksters benefit from holding out false hopes to those who don’t understand the obstacles.
We just crossed the line where more than half U.S. states allow permitless concealed carry, and there’s been zero momentum in the other direction on this topic.
It’s very difficult to imagine 2/3rds of state legislatures bringing to committee anything resembling Newsom’s drunken copy and paste job of stuff written by the group formerly known as Handgun Control, inc.
Why not enshrining in a Constitutional amendment that persons convicted of a crime of violence using a firearm will be immediately put to death. That sounds like a common sense law to prevent gun violence.
And I would bet a lot easier to pass. Ironically, all the objections to such an amendment will come from supporters of the Newsome proposal.
That will prove that curtailing violence is not the goal. The goal is to prevent the populace from fighting back.
Tongue in cheek aside, such a proposal would still cast a penumbra over gun rights. Home owners, for instance, would be hesitant to use a gun for self-defense, less an ambiguous situation be ruled against them by a jury and they be convicted of a so-called “violent” gun crime.
Probably right. But it would be interesting to see who objects to this.
It could be couched in terms of a a use of a firearm in the commission of another crime. Nonetheless. I am being facetious.
“That’s OK: most of the amendments are about rights, not freedoms, but his using the term in this context should set off everyone’s snake-oil salesman alarms.”
It should. Rights are things that the totalitarians-in-waiting despise. Freedoms are very often used as aspirational buzzwords. FDR’s Four Freedoms, for example, include Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. How we accomplish those two within the United States, much less outside the U.S. (as would be hard enough with the first two Freedoms I didn’t mention) is up in the air.
Ooooh, how I loathe the “Four Freedoms,” FDR and Eleanor at their Marxist worst.
Somehow, I thought you would…
Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. What do those even mean? I am afraid of getting run over my a bus. Should we get rid of busses so I no longer have that fear? Freedom from Want? I WANT a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard. I should get my 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard so I no longer suffer from that want/need. Right?
jvb
I was about to party devil’s advocate about the ATF director not defining an assault weapon along the lines of how he ducked the question–it’s up to Congress to set the definitions and the ATF merely enforces the law they had defined.
And then realization struck that we’re currently under bans of definitively non-firearm weapons that the ATF themselves previously published determination letters starting they have no support in the congressional code–bump stocks and pistol braces.
Yeah, nevermind. No devils advocate for you here.
I queried Bing’s AI program on this, and its response was at best the work of a sixth grader.
My Query:
Gavin Newsome has proposed a 28th amendment to the constitution to help end gun violence. He proposes: Raising the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21, universal background checks, reasonable waiting periods for gun purchases, and banning the civilian purchase of assault weapons. How legitimate is this proposal?
AI Response:
” Governor Gavin Newsom of California has proposed a 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to combat gun violence 1. The proposed amendment would raise the minimum age to buy guns from 18 to 21, mandate universal background checks and a waiting period, and bar civilians from buying assault weapons 1234.
The proposal has sparked resistance and debate among lawmakers 2. However, it is important to note that the process of amending the Constitution is a long and difficult one. The proposed amendment would need to be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress or by a convention called for by two-thirds of state legislatures. It would then need to be ratified by three-fourths of state legislatures or conventions in order to become part of the Constitution5.
In conclusion, Governor Newsom’s proposal is legitimate, but it remains to be seen whether it will gain enough support to become part of the Constitution.”
This is indicative of how the American people can be dumbed down by AI. There is absolutely no critical examination of the issues at all.
Those AIs are being trained to spit out leftwing propaganda, not analysis. I’m surprised it didn’t wholeheartedly advocate for the proposal. Someone will probably update it later to argue more stridently in favor of the amendment.
Wow. That is a bit terrifying.
jvb