California Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed his support of a bill Friday that would challenge the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Texas abortion law.
The Associated Press reported that, if the bill is passed, it would allow private citizens to sue gun manufacturers if they are in violation of the state’s ban on assault weapons.
California state Sen. Bob Hertzberg’s office released a fact sheet saying individuals could seek up to $10,000 in damages to companies who “manufacture, distribute, transport, import into California, or sell assault weapons, .50 BMG rifles, ghost guns or ghost gun kits”.
This bill follows the Texas Heartbeat Act, which lets citizens sue providers that perform abortions past the six week mark of pregnancy.
Newsom had announced in December that he was working with the state legislature and California Attorney General Rob Bonta to create legislation, similar to that in Texas, in order to enforce the state’s gun laws.
Newsom’s announcement came two days after the Supreme Court ruled to allow the Heartbeat Act to remain in effect.
On Friday, Newsom tweeted, “Gun industry greed has fueled the gun violence epidemic”.
“We are unveiling new tools to hold gun manufacturers accountable for the deaths their products cause. Nearly every industry is held liable when people are hurt or killed by their products—guns should be no different,” he added.
If the Supreme Court strikes down the law, Newsom said they will either reveal their “hypocrisy” or “get them to reconsider the absurdity of their previous decision”.
“There is no principled way the U.S. Supreme Court cannot uphold this California law,” Newsom said, according to the Press. “None. Period full stop. It is quite literally modeled after the law they just upheld in Texas”.
“In a just world, a woman’s right to choose would be sacrosanct, and California’s people would be protected from ghost guns and assault weapons,” Hertzberg tweeted. “Sadly, a misguided Supreme Court seems determined to turn common sense on its head”.
The Firearms Policy Coalition, a gun-rights advocacy group, said it will challenge the bill, which it called “modern-day Jim Crow laws”.
“The proposed firearm restrictions are ‘really just modern-day Jim Crow laws designed to suppress the exercise of human rights the tyrants who run California don’t like,” the group said.
The group’s attorney, Erik Jaffe, said “If Texas succeeds in its gambit here, New York, California, New Jersey, and others will not be far behind in adopting equally aggressive gambits to not merely chill but to freeze the right to keep and bear arms”.
