I’ve been hearing a lot about Gavin Newsom’s proposed 28th Amendment on gun control. But it’s all been second hand. I haven’t been able to read the actual text of the proposed amendment.
Can somebody link to a location where I can read the text?
Governor Newsom Proposes 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution | California Governor
" Principles of proposed 28th Amendment broadly supported by the American public and gun owners
The 28th Amendment will permanently enshrine four broadly supported gun safety principles into the U.S. Constitution:
- Raising the federal minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21;
- Mandating universal background checks to prevent truly dangerous people from purchasing a gun that could be used in a crime;
- Instituting a reasonable waiting period for all gun purchases; and
- Barring civilian purchase of assault weapons that serve no other purpose than to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time – weapons of war our nation’s founders never foresaw."
So, the exact same kind of attempting to do through the Constitution what couldn’t be done through legislation just like the 18th Amendment. And we all know how well Prohibition went.
Well, that’s the point of an amendment?
Or just like the 13th amendment. We all know how that went.
So the actual text?
To be fair, prohibition was to stop people from enjoying alcohol. Newsom’s proposal is to stop people from getting murdered.
In ten minutes of Googling, I’m not finding the plain text either. I get the impression that he’s proposed proposing it, and hasn’t actually drafted the proposed language yet. But I could be wrong.
Yeah, that looks more like his list of what the amendment would/should seek to do (or empower Congress to do) than actual amendment language.
If so, I feel Newsom made a mistake. He’s left himself open to a flanking attack, where opponents can craft a text that destroys the spirit of his proposal while living within the letter of the broad outline. And then force Newsom into the dilemma of either having to endorse a text he doesn’t agree with or denounce the text and open himself up to claims that he’s backpedaling.
Three quarters of the states were already dry before the 19th Amendment. Legislation had already worked. The only difference was that Congress was stuck defying the will of the people. Interestingly, the divide was almost entirely between rural and urban states, much like today.
Congress had to pass the Volstead Act to provide legislation that allowed them to destroy, confiscate, and regulate alcohol and its purveyors. What it didn’t do was provide enough money to properly enforce the Act. This was deliberate sabotage. The recalcitrant states also underfunded enforcement and enabled corruption.
Banning alcohol was a no-brainer health measure at the time. Deaths, illnesses, fights, spousal abuse, drunken driving, and a long list of other horrors haunt the country from this failure. Proper enforcement of alcohol would be as much a no-brainer today as it was in 1919.
Absolutely the same goes for guns.
I feel the 2nd Amendment is the equivalent of the 18th Amendment. It’s a constitutional block that prevents any legislation on the issue of gun control.
I feel this is more like the 21st Amendment. This proposed 28th Amendment is designed to remove the existing constitutional block and re-open the issue to legislation.
Unless the entirety of the text reads, “The Second Amendment is hereby repealed,” I’m not interested.
I couldn’t find any either. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is waiting to see how many other states are interested in a Constitutional Convention, although that would open up another entire can of worms (e.g. how would it be run, who runs it, who decides what amendments can be proposed (I for one have a “laundry list” of proposals based in part of things called for over the years, a number of which contradict each other (e.g. “Marriage shall be only between one man and one woman”, and, “Marriage can be between any two consenting adults, except that Congress may specify a restriction on blood relations”), and of those, which ones would the convention actually consider)? On top of everything else, it still takes 38 states to ratify anything approved by such a convention.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up getting Senator Padilla to introduce it in Congress just so it can be “on the record,” even if it has zero chance of getting 2/3 support in both the House and the Senate, which is probably why he is calling for the constitutional convention in the first place.
Describing prohibition as an effort to stop people from enjoying alcohol is about as accurate as saying this supposed amendment is an effort to stop people from target shooting. The people who worked for temperance and then prohibition did so because of the myriad of social problems associated with the consumption of alcohol. The Temperance movement was the longest progressive movement in U.S. history, and proponents supported it because they believed it would lead to less domestic violence, crime, and poverty. They were very wrong about the best way to mitigate the costs of alcohol to society, but they weren’t a bunch of stick-in-the-muds who just didn’t like the idea of someone else having a good time.
That said, I’m fine with Newsom’s proposal save for the final point about assault weapons. Insofar as this amendment in any form has a snowball’s chance in hell to begin with, the clause will kill it. But without it, is there any point to the amendment? i.e. Will it result in less harm?
“Newsome’s proposal is to stop people from enjoying murder.” 
This is clearly a political statement more than an actual attempt to amend the Constitution. If it were a sincere attempt to amend, it would probably be better to provide a refined version of the 2nd amendment (at the very least, clarifying how a “well regulated militia” modifies the language) allowing sensible regulation of gun ownership and use to be put in place by legislation.
What should be done but never will be thanks to the suicide pact known as the Constitution is to repeal the second.
At the very minimum, we could start incorporating undisputed conservative Scalia’s take on Heller, so as to leave it clear that there MAY be some federal, state and/or local limits on time, place and manner.
Reads to me like it’s largely just pushing the de facto reality of today (other than the age of purchase) up into the Constitution.
Practically speaking it’s a nothing. You could argue that it prevents backsliding but that’s about the limit of it. So I’d personally read this as an attempt to generate headlines without actually having to do anything.
Personally, empty headline searchers go straight to the back of my list of people to vote for. If someone demonstrates themselves to be deceitful then they’re inapplicable to the job description of a representative of the people.
And while I support the underlying mission of the 2nd Amendment, I’d note that amending the Constitution with this would almost certainly destroy any other attempt to make a larger change to it anywhere in the next several generations. If someone is anti-2nd Amendment, I’d be angry at Newsom for bringing it to the table and making it the starting negotiating point.
Agreed. If we’re going to amend the Constitution* to limit the destructiveness of firearms in our society, why nibble around the edges? Cut out the heart of the 2nd Amendment by defining the “well-regulated militia” bit to open the door to far more sweeping (and henceforth constitutional) limitations.
(*or even propose amending the Constitution as a vie for publicity)