US: California passes law allowing citizens to sue gun violators in pushback to Texas abortion bill

California’s legislature responded to the widely criticized abortion bill enacted in Texas by passing a law targeting firearms. Over the weekend, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law, allowing citizens to sue firearm violators.

Friday last week, Newsom signed the legislation passed by the state legislature into law that would allow private citizens to file lawsuits against those who sell, manufacture, or distribute assault weapons and firearms made at home to avoid tracing.

The law is seen as pushback against the law passed by the Texas legislature that would allow private citizens to sue those who help women seek abortion services.

Newsom signed the bill into law on the same day he released an ad that criticized Texas’s reproductive rights policies. Newsom has pushed for the passage of the bill since last year, following the Conservative-majority Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the law in Texas.

“Our message to the criminals spreading illegal weapons in California is simple: You have no safe harbor here in the Golden State,” said Newsom, who is a possible presidential contender in 2024, in a news release. “California will use every tool at its disposal to save lives, especially in the face of an increasingly extreme Supreme Court.”

Newsom also said the new legislation on firearms in California was the response to the law in Texas he described as “perverse.” In an advertisement in newspapers in Texas, Newsom featured a quote by the state’s governor, Republican Greg Abbott, who said abortion costs children their “right to life.”

Newsom changed the word “abortion” to “gun violence” to assert that gun violence was the leading cause of death for children rather than abortion.

Last month, Newsom also responded to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion ruling by signing legislation that would provide protections to patients and abortion providers in the state against other states who may attempt to spread their anti-abortion laws into California.

The legislation also follows an attempt by the legislature in Missouri to pass a law that would sue state residents who seek abortion services out of the state, including those who help them and the providers themselves.