California governor signs unprecedented gun bill allowing private citizens to sue gunmakers and dealers News
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California governor signs unprecedented gun bill allowing private citizens to sue gunmakers and dealers

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a bill, SB-1327, modeled after Texas’ abortion law. The California gun bill allows private citizens to bring lawsuits against those who make, sell, transport or import guns.

While Texas’ abortion law, which took effect on September 1 last year, allows private citizens to bring civil actions against physicians and those “aid[ing] or abet[ting] the performance or inducement of an abortion” in violation of the state ban on abortion beyond six weeks of pregnancy, California’s bill targets manufacturers, distributors, transporters and importers of assault weapons or ghost guns. Under the law, damages of at least USD 10,000 can be sought “for each weapon or firearm precursor part.” The same amount of damages applies to firearms dealers who illegally provide firearms to persons under 21 years of age. 

Signing the bill into effect on Friday, Newsom said:

Our message to the criminals spreading illegal weapons in California is simple: you have no safe harbor here in the Golden State. While the Supreme Court rolls back reasonable gun safety measures, California continues adding new ways to protect the lives of our kids. California will use every tool at its disposal to save lives, especially in the face of an increasingly extreme Supreme Court.

In response to the US Supreme Court’s December 2021 decision to allow Texas’ restrictive abortion law to remain in place, Newsom had announced his plan to roll out the bill. He had said:

I have directed my staff to work with the Legislature and the Attorney General on a bill that would create a right of action allowing private citizens to seek injunctive relief, and statutory damages of at least $10,000 per violation plus costs and attorney’s fees, against anyone who manufactures, distributes, or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit or parts in the State of California. 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.

In March this year, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that “Texas law does not authorize the state-agency executives to enforce the Act’s requirements, either directly or indirectly,” thus leaving the ban in effect.

Newsom recently signed several bills tightening gun regulations in the state.