California came up with the best answer to the Texas laws going all out to save fetuses but doing little to protect children, even after 19 children were shot and killed in a Uvalde elementary school Tuesday.
May 26, 2022

The California Senate advanced a package of gun control bills hours after the Uvalde shooting, and one of them is a Governor Newsom-sponsored bill that, like the Texas abortion law, deputizes private citizens to enforce it:

From U.S. News & World Report:

The California rule would allow private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, distributes or sells so-called “assault weapons” or ghost guns or parts in the state. And, just as importantly, it would provide incentive to do so, with an end goal of removing such weapons from circulation.

U.S. News notes that legal experts and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor predicted that the Texas law would be copied elsewhere but used for other purposes. Now, it has, and for the purpose of saving lives instead of ruining them:

Newsom said in a statement following the Supreme Court ruling [allowing the Texas abortion ban to stay in place while legal challenges continued] that he was “outraged” by the decision but added that if states can now “shield their laws from review by the federal courts,” then “California will use that authority to protect people’s lives, where Texas used it to put women in harm’s way.” The comments came in reference to a federal judge ruling in June that found that the state’s long-standing ban on the manufacturing and sale of assault rifles was unconstitutional.

The Democratic governor said he had directed his staff to work with the state legislature and the attorney general to design a bill replicating the enforcement mechanism that has by design made it extremely difficult to challenge the Texas law in court.

I'd love to hope that the guns and fetus worshipers in Texas and on the Supreme Court will be shamed by California into doing something to protect children but that would require them to have some shame.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon