Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said on Saturday that he expects to introduce a similar gun control law in reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision to sustain the Texas abortion ban, which was upheld last week.
Gavin Newsom, the state’s attorney general, said the Supreme Court’s decision has established a precedent that would allow states to circumvent the federal courts when drafting laws.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Saturday to preserve the state of Texas’ prohibition on most abortion services, Newsom published a statement expressing his unhappiness with the decision. He said that if states have the authority to shield their laws from examination by federal courts who compare assault weapons with Swiss Army knives, California would use that power to protect people’s lives, but Texas has used it to put the women in danger of being killed.
“I am outraged by yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing Texas’s ban on most abortion services to remain in place,” Newsom said in a statement.
“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.”
Libtarian Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed her dissatisfaction with the court’s ruling in a dissent on Friday, accusing the majority of failing to “put a halt to this folly” and warning that other states may attempt to mimic Texas’ enforcement system.
With the assistance of legislators and the state’s attorney general, he has directed his team to develop legislation that would allow private individuals to sue anybody who distributes, manufactures, or sells an assault weapon in their own state.
He believes that if private litigation is the most efficient strategy of keeping these lethal weapons off our streets, then we should use them.
President Joe Biden expressed grave concern over the decision to keep the abortion ban, but said that the court’s decision to let part of the abortion providers’ case to proceed was encouraging.
