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Gavin Newsom’s 28th Amendment stunt is dead on arrival

June 28, 2023

The United States Constitution has only been amended twice in the last half century. The most recent amendment, the twenty-seventh, technically took more than two-hundred years to complete. It was originally approved by Congress in 1789 but not ratified by the states until 1992 following a public campaign led by a college student. Another way the Constitution can be amended is for two-thirds of state legislatures to call an “Article V convention,” where amendments can be proposed and deliberated. Then, three-quarters of the states must vote to ratify, formally amending the Constitution. Needless to say, it’s a complex process.

Why the history lesson? Because California Governor Gavin Newsom recently launched a national campaign aimed at ratifying a “28th Amendment” to the Constitution pushed through the Article V convention method, which has never been successfully used since our nation’s founding. He announced that he will use political campaign funds to spearhead this effort to get state legislatures behind the amendment.

The objective? To peel back protections for Americans that our Founding Fathers codified in the Second Amendment.

Governor Newsom’s proposed “28th Amendment” would implement a liberal wish list of gun control policies that have only caught on in a small number of blue states. It includes banning “assault weapons,” which is an ambiguous term that gun control proponents can never meaningfully define, but is broadly aimed at depriving Americans of some of the popular firearms used to protect their homes and families.

First and foremost – these policies will never become law as a constitutional amendment. Setting aside their merits for a moment, the political support isn’t there. In fact, there are already many state legislatures that wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, let alone support them being implemented at the federal level.

It’s not just that the 28th Amendment is an unserious proposal, the specific provisions wouldn’t actually do anything to curb violent crime or reduce the number of heinous killings committed with firearms. The first “assault weapons” ban passed in 1994 had little to no impact on crime reduction or the number of gun deaths, and rifles were only used in three percent of murders committed with a gun in 2020, according to Pew Research Center.

The other provisions are also extremely flawed. Is the federal government supposed to tell 18-to-20-year-old adults in the military that they can’t purchase a firearm to defend themselves one day, then send them to war, rifle in hand, the next day? What duration should a domestic abuse victim be forced to wait before she can purchase a gun to protect herself from a potentially violent partner? And how would the government plan to enforce universal background checks on criminals purchasing firearms who, by their very definition, don’t follow the law?

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These easily critiqued policies demonstrate the true motivation behind the “28th amendment” campaign, despite what its proponents might tell us. It’s not to protect innocent lives or curb the epidemic of violent crime across the country, nor does it have any respect for the Second Amendment. The only other possible motivation is to raise a certain governor’s political profile around the country. Perhaps that’s why the campaign’s official website is light on details but heavy on platitudes and flattering images.

Politicizing this issue is wrong. We need to have serious, sober-minded conversations about how to make our communities safer, how to empower law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families, and prevent instances of mass violence – all while ensuring we protect our most fundamental constitutional rights. What we don’t need are pie-in-the-sky political campaigns advocating for unrealistic and ineffective policies.

Katie Pointer Baney serves as the managing director of government affairs for the U.S. Concealed Carry Association and is a senior advisor to the USCCA-For Saving Lives Super PAC.

Orange County Register

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Gavin Newsom’s 28th Amendment stunt is dead on arrival

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