Dec. 12 (UPI) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he plans to craft a firearm ban in the model of Texas’ abortion ban after the Supreme Court ruled Friday to allow the latter to stand.
In a statement Saturday night, Newsom said he directed his staff to work with the state legislature and California Attorney General Rob Bonta to draw up a bill that would allow private citizens to file lawsuits “against anyone who manufactures, distributes, or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit or parts in the State of California.”
“If the most efficient way to keep these devastating weapons off our streets is to add the threat of private lawsuits, we should do just that,” he said.
Newsom’s statement came after the Supreme Court voted 8-1 to allow legal challenges to the Texas abortion law to continue but did not take action to block or reject the law, which bars abortions as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can be as little as six weeks.
The Texas law is enforced by private citizens through lawsuits against doctors and clinics that perform abortions. The law comes with a $10,000 penalty against any defendant found to violate it.
Newsom said he was “outraged” by the high court’s decision and said the state would graft the gun law that would follow the same legal parameters as the Texas law, including allowing lawsuits from private citizens seeking injunctive relief and statutory damages of at least $10,000 against gun manufacturers.
“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,” he said.
