Newsom Apes Abbott's Meddler Weaponization Law

It never takes long for one power-hungry, anti-freedom politician to learn from another, even if most people would say they are from opposite ends of the "political spectrum." So it is that Gavin Newsom plans a gun-control measure that is modeled on an anti-abortion law in Texas.

This is terrible news, however predictable. And fortunately, Joel Mathis of The Week, offers both a succinct analysis why both measures are very bad and a ray of hope that the Supreme Court will set a good precedent by striking down the Texas law:

[C]ivil courts exist to fairly arbitrate and resolve disputes between citizens -- usually a case in which one or both litigants has suffered some kind of injury or loss. The Texas law does something different: It uses those courts to create a new class of conflict, one in which a plaintiff is allowed to sue even if they have no relationship whatsoever to the persons either providing or receiving care. (Indeed, the first Texas lawsuit was brought by a former lawyer from Arkansas, more or less because he could.) [link omitted, bold added]

This would seem to me -- admittedly a rank amateur at legal analysis -- to be reason enough to throw this law out. Right or wrong, let the second sentence below sink in:

Mind your own... (Image by Bee Naturalles, via Unsplash, license.)

The Texas abortion law is terrible all on its own. Now imagine that kind of law, about all kinds of issues, being passed in states across the country.

I continue to suspect and hope that the law's provisions are so outrageous -- for reasons that have nothing to do with abortion -- that even a Supreme Court composed mostly of pro-life conservatives will strike it down. The future of abortion rights won't be resolved in Texas. And even if they agree with the ends, justices must understand that the means are too destructive. That would still be the case in the service of an ostensibly good cause like reducing gun violence. [link omitted, bold added]

I am pro-choice and against gun control, but it is the potential for laws like this to multiply rapidly and threaten freedom on many additional fronts that has alarmed me the most since I learned about it.

-- CAV