Editorial: Newsom gun amendment is a non-starter, but it still has value

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed constitutional amendment on gun safety has two great things going for it. The first is that it aims to protect four popular and modest commonsense restrictions: a ban on assault weapons, mandated background checks on gun buyers, a waiting period before buyers can take possession, and a minimum purchasing age of 21.

All four requirements are already law in California, where they contribute to a gun death rate that’s about 37% lower than the national average.

All four are currently in peril as the U.S. Supreme Court continues to strike down reasonable gun laws. Under Newsom’s proposal, all four would become law nationwide.

And the second great thing about the would-be 28th Amendment? It has no chance of being adopted.

Thank goodness. Although the four California gun requirements at issue are exactly the right policy, and although polling shows that all four are embraced by a majority of Americans, Newsom’s route for getting them into the Constitution is scary. He wants to call a constitutional convention.

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The problem is that once a convention is in session, it can propose anything — not just new gun provisions, but any number of new governmental powers or restrictions that could upend the way the nation operates. It might come up with an entirely new Constitution. That may sound great to people who believe the nation is in desperate need of a reset, until they realize that there’s no guarantee of a better outcome.

A convention could produce wiser gun laws, but it could just as easily abolish restrictions on any weapons. It could eliminate civil rights protections or enhance the powers of the armed forces, or pretty much anything. If it proposes a Constitution that is adopted by the states, it couldn’t be struck down as unconstitutional because, well, it would be the Constitution.

But of course none of that is going to happen. To call a convention under Article V of the existing Constitution, the legislatures of two-thirds of the states would have to be on board, and then the legislatures (or state conventions) of three-fourths of the states would have to ratify whatever the convention approves. If there were sufficient consensus to call a convention, or to amend the Constitution through the more traditional route (with supermajorities in the House and Senate approving the proposal, and ratification by three-fourths of the states), there would probably already be consensus to pass sensible gun laws through most state legislatures.

So should Californians blast Newsom’s proposal as a headline-grabbing political stunt to score political points around the nation? Is it just another flavor of his wrongheaded proposal to encourage Californians to sue one another over guns, the same way a Texas law offers bounties to punish abortions? (Newsom signed legislation to enact his plan, but it was partially struck down in court.)

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Or should we praise Newsom for finally offering something more muscular than the typical thoughts-and-prayers response to mass shootings while the Supreme Court and the gun industry (and its GOP lackeys) undermine sensible restrictions?

A little of both, perhaps. The constitutional convention idea may be just a ploy, but it’s a nice, if merely symbolic, alternative to hand-wringing and congressional impotence.

For the present, more effective action seems out of reach. Newsom previously pushed through serious gun reforms such as Proposition 63, a successful 2016 California ballot measure requiring criminal background checks for purchasing ammunition and a ban on magazines that hold more than 10 bullets, among other things.

But key parts of that measure, and indeed any modest restriction on the proliferation of deadly weapons, are imperiled by the Supreme Court’s aggressive interpretation of 2nd Amendment rights.

Progress on gun reform will require creative thinking and political will, and Newsom put both on display when he unveiled his proposed amendment last month. It will also require a measure of pragmatism. It would be nice to see some of that from the governor as well.