What do you think of CA Governor Newsom's Recently Proposed Gun Amendment?

Short answer: Nothing more than a move to get attention. I'm sure he knows it will go absolutely nowhere. That being the case, I find it incredibly selfish and self-centered to somehow be advancing his own political career rather than doing something meaningful. Kind of shameful honestly. To propose *as a Constitutional amendment* what would, if anything, fit better as legislation, is like he's ensuring for himself that this will flop. Two thirds of *both* houses of Congress, or two thirds of all of the states asking for this? Not a chance in hell. Then the contents of the thing come across as not thought through at all. Examples, quoting from the California state government website: > Mandating universal background checks to prevent truly dangerous people from purchasing a gun that could be used in a crime Background checks already exist, going through the national system maintained by the FBI. Can private transfers take place without a NICS check? Yes. Of recent shootings, would this have stopped any of them? I doubt it. You either have street violence with stolen guns, or total negligence with insecure firearms that were purchased legally and passed a background check, or X-Y-Z other scenario. This also does nothing to prevent straw purchases and arms trafficking. I just don't see how this accomplishes anything. > 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. The latter bit of it is trivial to shoot down. I'm fairly certain this has already been covered in at least one Supreme Court case. Basically if you were to play the "founders never foresaw this" card then you are setting precedent that the 1st amendment can't possibly apply to the internet, radio, etc - beyond the wildest dreams of people in the 1700's. Moreover, playing the bit about "these were designed to shoot as much as possible in the shortest amount of time" - when has that not been the case? You could say the same about revolvers and lever-action guns in the 1800's. So to recap - proposals that either don't make sense or won't accomplish anything, set up to be in an amendment that will never pass. All of which is blatantly obvious. Just so some guy can get some more attention for himself.