BELLEVUE, WA – Passage by California lawmakers of anti-gun Democrat Gov. Newsom’s call for a constitutional convention to push a 28th Amendment dictating gun control measures is a horrible move which should be rejected by all other states, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms says.

Newsom’s proposal, announced earlier in the summer and explained by the Los Angeles Times, would mandate “universal background checks” on all firearm purchases, raise the minimum age to purchase firearms to 21 years, create a “reasonable waiting period” on gun purchases and ban the sale of modern semiautomatic firearms—the so-called “assault weapons” anti-gunners despise—in a package that would essentially destroy the Second Amendment, which has been their goal for decades.

“Gavin Newsom’s proposal would effectively turn the right to keep and bear arms into a government-regulated privilege,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb stressed. “As we just witnessed in New Mexico, an anti-gun-rights governor could use such a constitutional amendment to effectively disarm the citizenry as a ‘public health emergency’ without any recourse of legal challenge. We’re actually very fortunate that New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham attempted such an outrageous infringement on Second Amendment rights, just so the nation could see how extreme she, Newsom and other like-minded politicians would become if they could legally get away with it.

“Newsom and his ilk are pushing this scheme under the guise of ‘gun safety,’ when we all know better,” he continued. “This is a poorly disguised attempt to nullify the right to keep and bear arms and underscores the need for every gun owner in America to tell their state lawmakers to oppose Newsom’s resolution. This is nothing more than an effort to fool the people into surrendering their gun rights, which have been protected for more than two centuries, and recently affirmed and reinforced by three consecutive Supreme Court rulings.

“Gavin Newsom and his far-left Democrat allies in and out of California want to emasculate the cornerstone amendment in our Bill of Rights,” Gottlieb said. “The time has come to just flat tell them ‘No.’ We are in the process of mailing millions of petitions to veto this proposed 28th Amendment and stop Newsom’s fanatical plan to shred the Constitution and our Bill of Rights. We will not sit back and wait, because there are too many billionaires out there willing to put their money behind Newsom’s crusade. So, we’re starting right now to build the public groundswell against this despicable idea.”