This is a brave and bold move. I salute the Governor of California for codifying common sense thought into a proposal for a constitutional amendment to cure the senseless violence in this country. And yes, as soon as news of this story broke and this video was posted to Twitter, the disparaging slander started. “Newscum is trying to eradicate the 2nd Amendment.”
NEW: I’m proposing the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to help end our nation’s gun violence crisis.
The American people are sick of Congress’ inaction.
The 28th will enshrine 4 widely supported gun safety freedoms — while leaving the 2nd Amendment intact:
1)… pic.twitter.com/ZJ7fyfH0Cf
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 8, 2023
Not surprisingly, a lot of the blowback is coming out of Texas.
The terror of discussing gun rights comes out of decades of conspiracy theory that the government is going to suddenly become fascist and begin kicking in the doors — and people will be powerless to defend themselves. I have seen these videos with my own eyes and they scare the hell out of me as well. I remember one that showed jack booted thugs coming through the door to carry away people who owed student loans — at a time when I did. I remember thinking to myself, “Well, that’s one way to handle it.”
For all of the deification of St. Ronnie of Reagan, he was the one who got the ball rolling with “government is the problem.” Make no mistake, the gun crazies thought that Obama was going to spirit them out of their beds and lock them in FEMA facilities, because of conspiracy theories (such as Michele Bachmann’s) to that effect.
Gun control is an insanely emotionally charged topic. Maybe this proposal can begin to address the matter calmly. It’s a given that the massacres themselves A) won’t stop and B) of themselves won’t persuade any change. We need to try another tack, that much is certain.
America’s Politicians must come together & pass sensible Gun reform, background checks & banning WAR GUN, AR-15! I don’t care what the RW says! This is SENSIBLE reform! We don’t care about the guns u have now, they’re yours to keep! STOP saying Democrats want to take your fkg guns, it’s NOT TRUE!
The stupidity of that is it requires a Constitutional Convention where more than half the power would be held by GQP Legislatures. Want to see the Christo-fascist agenda installed in this country? Push for the convention guaranteed to open that door.
There are 27 Amendments to the Constitution. The first ten, which we know as the Bill of Rights was a package deal. (It actually was fourteen amendments but only ten were ratified. Also, contrary to popular belief the amendments in the Bill of Rights are not in “order of importance” but rather basically starting at the beginning of the Articles of the Constitution and adding in or clarifying things in the order there would have been/are addressed in the main body. Anyway, since then a process the founders envisioned would be not easy but not difficult either by the founders another seventeen amendments have been ratified and are part of our Constitution. There are two means by which the Constitution can be amended. Newsome’s proposal is to use what’s been done in the past – Congress passes a Joint Resolution (in both the House and Senate a two-thirds vote is necessary for passage) and since it’s a Joint Resolution no Presidential approval is needed. It then goes to the National Archivist (as of the mid 1980s, at first it was the Secretary of State and then the head of the GSA) who passes it to NARA’s Office of Federal Register (OFR). OFR publishes the amendment with an information packet that includes the legislative history and other notes so state legislatures can take it up for ratification. After three-fifths of the states (currently that means 38 states) ratify the amendment becomes part of our Constitution. This is what’s always taken place. The use of a Constitutional Convention to pass an amendment(s) hasn’t been utilized. For a more detailed explanation here it is.
The Guns Over People party would rather have piles of mutilated and dead citizens, especially children. They lie about everything especially the second amendment. FACT
We brought in child safety seats, seatbelts, airbags, and anti-lock brakes in our vehicles after far fewer people were killed and injured in car accidents than the number of people killed and injured by guns today.
Gunshot is still the leading cause of death in children in the USA today.
Newsom is doing the right thing.
Look at the Tylenol scare of the late 1970s. Now we cannot open packages of anything. Some change happens very quickly for the safety of all.
Speaking of Reagan and guns I always think back to his time as Gov. of CA and the Mulford Act. Ronnie advocated for it and happily signed that GUN CONTROL legislation. Of course the whole thing came about because he couldn’t have those black people up in Oakland getting organized to protect their neighborhoods (armed) when the police wouldn’t! Or getting together in Sacramento at the Capitol. No way.
Most of the second amendment types and ALL of their leaders write in a word to that amendment. White. As in after ignoring the modifier in the first part, “the right of the WHITE people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
I’ve joked with members of my black family that they are much more moral as a race. If a black majority had instigated slavery of us by kidnapping, raping the women, selling the children, and ongoing cruelty since 1619…why we white folks would have taken up arms and killed our masters. I suspect this overkill to have your own personal arsenal may be unconscious guilt generating fear of reprisal. Just guessing, but I do get a lot of laughs and head shaking. They are surprised a white man would tell the truth about race relations. Of course they sometimes forget my skin color. See…like I said…the black race in America has shown a remarkable penchant for being restrained in their prejudice against us, even though they have hundreds of years of horror to justify vengeance.