California governor Gavin Newsom said on Saturday that he wants to pass legislation that empowers private citizens to sue gun manufacturers, sellers, and distributors in the state — using the controversial Supreme Court ruling on strict abortion curbs in Texas to design the law.
The announcement comes on the heels of a Friday ruling from the Supreme Court that allowed abortion providers challenge the Texas law, but left it in effect. The law, S.B. 8, was designed to effectively ban abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy in the state by giving private citizens the right to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion.
“I am outraged by yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing Texas’s ban on most abortion services to remain in place,” Newsom wrote in a statement Saturday. “But 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.”
The governor has already directed his staff to work with the legislature and the attorney general to craft the anti-gun bill, which would allow private individuals to sue manufacturers, sellers, or distributors of assault weapons or ghost-gun kits for at least $10,000 per violation. “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,” Newsom wrote.
