Governor Gavin Newsom has good goals, but his efforts to mandate gun control and amend the U.S. Constitution have missed the mark.

California’s liberal governor has no chance of passing a gun control amendment. It is beyond the realm of political possibility, at least for the foreseeable future.

But it’s okay. Given the current rate of gun slaughter across America and the steadfast refusal of the firearms lobby to compromise on reasonable regulation, a Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution will likely be amended sometime this century. is a matter of time.

Newsom wants to get it on track.

“If you don’t start, it never happens,” he says.

Mr. Newsom’s aim misses the point, as he seeks to enshrine specific regulations in the Constitution.

His proposal gets to the point. It is as if the nation’s founders, when enacting the Second Amendment right to bear arms in 1789, specified the maximum muzzle size and musket firepower of the fiasco.

Newsom wants the 28th Amendment to explicitly require four conditions for gun ownership. Buyers must be at least 21 years old, undergo a “universal background check” and wait a “reasonable period of time” before accepting a gun from a seller. Also, “offensive weapons” could not be sold to civilians.

Offensive weapons would likely include semi-automatic weapons with high-capacity magazines. The type is already banned in California, and the ban has been challenged in court by gun-ownership advocates.

These firearms “have no purpose other than to kill as many people as possible in a short period of time, and are weapons of war that our founders never foresaw,” Newsom said last week when announcing the national campaign.

Agreed. But the details of gun control should be left to Congress, state legislatures and local governments to decide.

Newsom’s amendment would include provisions that would allow elected federal, state and local legislators to enact “common sense gun safety regulations.” But that’s all there is to do. Forget the details.

Newsom, like many gun control advocates, believes the current gun-legal Supreme Court would overrule the stringent regulations already in place in California and other blue states by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I am concerned that the court will discard the document if it finds it to be in violation of the article. So he wants the new amendments to firmly embed key regulations in the constitution, while preserving the right to bear arms.

But Irwin Chemelinski, dean of constitutional law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said gun control, which Newsom is concerned about, has not been found by the Supreme Court to violate the Second Amendment. at least not yet.

Therefore, he reasoned, no new constitutional amendment is necessary. Congress could adopt draconian regulations themselves.

Of course, repeated attempts to pressure Congress to pass such legislation have failed miserably, given the inherent gun culture in much of the country, especially in rural areas.

“Governors are ignoring important issues,” Mr. Chemelinski said. “It’s a lack of political will in Congress and legislatures for meaningful gun control. If we can’t get legislation, we can’t change the constitution.”

There are two ways to adopt a constitutional amendment, both of which are very difficult for controversial subjects such as firearms. Only one method has been used so far. That is, both houses of Congress would propose an amendment by his two-thirds majority, and the bill would be approved by his three-fourths of Congress.

Newsom knows Congress will never do that. So he proposes a method that has not yet been tried. In other words, two-thirds of the states want Congress to convene a constitutional convention. In that case, the treaty amendment would need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.

“It’s a terrible idea,” says Chemelinski.

He fears the tournament may go out of control and many of the amendments may be tampered with.

“Liberals have opposed constitutional legislation that calls for a balanced budget amendment for years, citing risks,” he said. “Mr Newsom denies the argument.”

Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who specializes in gun law, said: I can’t believe Americans will rewrite the Constitution anytime soon. It can lead to a constitution worse than ours.

“About 40 states are very pro-gun.

In fact, Winkler believes Newsom’s efforts could backfire by promoting gun control.

“I think it’s a distraction,” he says. “Democrats might convince gun owners that they just want to take their guns away, and that could make things harder to get through.”

Dan Schner, a former Republican operative who teaches political communications at the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley, said Mr. Newsom’s amendment “has no chance of ever happening.”

But it’s still pretty smart politics.

“When Newsom usually talks about national politics, he sounds very partisan, very divisive, very acrimonious. He looks like the liberal version.” [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis. In this regard, however, he addresses issues with which most of the public agrees with him. ”

“He didn’t make this suggestion because he thought it could happen,” Schner said. “He made it for attention, and it worked.”

of course. But if Mr. Newsom has the staying power to push for it aggressively, it could increase the enthusiasm among Democratic voters to advocate for meaningful gun control enactment by Democratic voters. For years, that passion has all been on the gun ownership side.

“People are going to want this to happen in the state legislature,” said Rep. Reginald Jones Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), who will be sponsoring a California legislative resolution calling on Congress to hold a party convention. claim.

“It will not necessarily be what the politicians want, it will be what the people want.”

That’s wishful thinking. But the effort may be worth it.

That is, if Newsom discards the crux of what too many gun owners would take as a threat to take away the musket of the 21st century.