Updated 5:32 p.m.
California Governor Gavin Newsom wants to amend the U.S. Constitution to place new restrictions on guns, including universal background checks and raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm.
The ambitious proposal is in response to frequent mass shootings in America.
“They tell us we can’t stop these massacres,” Newsom said, referring to Republican officials who oppose new gun laws. “They say we have to stand by and watch tragedy after tragedy unfold in our communities.”
“In this country, we do have the power … to change things,” he said in a video announcing the new effort. “Our ability to make a more perfect union is literally written into the constitution.”
The new amendment would:
- raise the federal minimum age to purchase gun from 18 to 21
- impose universal background checks on gun sales
- implement a waiting period for gun purchases
- ban civilians from owning assault rifles
Polling shows majorities of Americans support universal background checks and an assault weapons ban, but are divided over other gun restrictions.
Amending the Constitution requires either approval from two-thirds of the members in Congress, or a convention of states, which requires support from two-thirds of state legislatures.
Either way, proposed amendments must be ratified by at least 38 states, or three-quarters of all states in the union.
Michael McConnell, director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford University and former Tenth Circuit judge, called Newsom’s proposal “a symbolic gesture” because “the hurdle for a Constitutional amendment – especially one that would be controversial – is so enormously high.”
“I generally assume that when politicians propose constitutional amendments, this is an acknowledgment that they can’t actually do anything,” McConnell said in an interview.
He noted the Constitution has never been amended through a convention of the states, which is the path Newsom appears to prefer. The second-term governor said in his announcement “California will be the first” to call for a convention of states, also known as an Article V convention.
A Constitutional amendment was last ratified in 1992.
The Democratic chairs of the Legislature’s Public Safety Committees, Sen. Aisha Wahab and Asm. Reggie Jones-Sawyer, are co-authoring the resolution to convene a convention of states.
Many Republican-led states have passed legislation in recent years to demand an Article V convention. A conservative group called Convention of States Action is advocating for such a gathering, with proposed amendments “that will impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress,” according to its website.
But it’s unclear whether California’s new request for a convention of states would be added to that list of GOP-led states, or begin a separate effort to consider different topics.
“The answer is no one knows. The Constitution is not clear on this one way or the other,” McConnell said, adding there is academic dispute on the matter.
Sen. Wahab, who is co-authoring the resolution in the state Senate, dismissed “rhetoric” about its unlikely odds by pointing to Newsom’s role in another historic moment: conducting some of the first same-sex marriages in the country.
“At that time it was seen as impossible and yet he literally was the catalyst for change and it is now the law of the land,” she said.
Wahab said gun violence is personal for her: Her father was murdered when she was a child.
“My parents were Afghan refugees,” she said. “They came to this country seeking their American dream, and for him to escape a war to only die by gun violence here in the United States is unfair.”
The East Bay Democrat said the legislation will likely be introduced and receive its first hearing in a Senate committee before the end of the month.
Republicans in California and other states have written off the proposal as a political stunt.
Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher called it a “poorly thought out, attention-seeking stunt from a governor desperate to distract from his ever-growing record of failure.”
The campaign to amend the Constitution is run through Newsom’s new political action committee, Campaign for Democracy, which launched in March.
The governor has more frequently lashed out at GOP officials over guns, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights and other issues.
Earlier this week he called Florida Governor Ron DeSantis a “small, pathetic man” after DeSantis’ administration sent two planes of migrants to Sacramento from the U.S. border.
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