After the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a Texas law banning most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected to remain in effect on Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signaled he would use similar legal strategies to enforce gun control in his state, a move that has rattled Second Amendment advocates.
“I am outraged by yesterday’s US Supreme Court decision allowing Texas’s ban on most abortion services to remain in place, and largely endorsing Texas’s scheme to insulate its law from the fundamental protections of Roe v. Wade,” the Democratic governor said in a statement Saturday.
“But if states can now shield their laws from review by the federal courts that compare assault weapons to Swiss Army knives, then California will use that authority to protect people’s lives, where Texas used it to put women in harm’s way.”
Friday’s Supreme Court decision allows the Texas law to remain in effect and permits private citizens to sue anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion after six weeks, a move some supporters of abortion rights have equated to allowing private citizens to chase after “bounties.” However, the court noted abortion providers have a right to challenge the law in federal court.
The California governor directed staff to draft a bill that would allow private citizens to seek injunctive relief “against anyone who manufactures, distributes, or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit or parts in the State of California,” which raised alarm bells among some gun rights advocates.
“[We] predicted that tyrants like Gavin Newsom would use the Texas model against fundamental human rights including the freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms,” the Firearms Policy Coalition said in a statement on Saturday.
“FPC’s work to address Newsom’s policy preferences won’t end at litigation,” the group added. “For example, we will continue to robustly promote the right and ability to personally manufacture firearms at home, including by 3D printing and the sharing of knowledge.”
During oral arguments last month over the Texas abortion law, also known as S.B. 8, the conservative-leaning Justice Brett Kavanaugh raised a hypothetical situation with Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone, asking about the “implications of your position for other constitutional rights.”
Kavanaugh asked whether the same procedures Texas used to allow abortion providers to become subject to private lawsuits could be used on a seller of an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon, asking whether weapons providers could be theoretically sued for $1 million.
Arguing against the Texas law was Justice Department Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who contended: “If a state can just take this simple mechanism of taking its enforcement authority and giving it to the general public backed up with a bounty of $10,000 or $1 million, if they can do that, then no constitutional right is safe.”
In late November, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the state’s ban on high-capacity magazines, which was seen by gun rights groups as a further attack by the state on Second Amendment rights.
The appeals court’s decision comes as the Supreme Court is expected to make a ruling in June on a high-profile Second Amendment case in New York.
The Washington Examiner contacted Newsom’s office and the Firearms Policy Coalition but did not immediately receive a response.
