California gun control activists and pro-life Texas conservatives apparently have more in common than they would like to admit. And, unfortunately, that could portend the beginning of a worrisome political trend when it comes to deeply divisive issues. 

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Ruling on Texas’ controversial abortion law, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened to adopt the tactics of Texas Republicans to disenfranchise his state’s residents of certain Second Amendment rights. 

Historically, as with attempts to curtail abortion rights, attempts to restrict firearm ownership often run into legal roadblocks—as is evidenced by the slew of lawsuits facing California. Indeed, more so than many other political debates, such contentious issues almost inevitably end up in court where the ambitions of both groups run up against justices willing to limit the actions of government. 

As it turns out, restricting behavior previously understood by the courts to be constitutionally protected is a difficult endeavor—which is why Texas lawmakers took a distinctly unorthodox approach to undermining the precedent set by Roe v. Wade in their last legislative session. It’s also why pro-choice Democrat Gavin Newsom has apparently found inspiration from those very same Texas conservatives. 

When Texas passed Senate Bill 8 to ban abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy—a ban that would likely be successfully challenged on constitutional grounds—it did so without giving the state any enforcement power. Instead, it effectively deputized private citizens to sue “any person who…aids or abets the performance or inducement of abortion” and win a $10,000 bounty plus legal fees if the civil suit is successful.

By so doing, SB8 limited the ability for anyone to mount a legal challenge against the state—a limitation that seems to have worked as planned, given that the U.S. Supreme Court recently decided to allow the law to remain in effect for the time being. 

While railing against the impact that ruling would have on the abortion industry and women in Texas, Newsom threatened to emulate the law’s structure in his own state to move forward with sweeping restrictions on firearms ownership. His embrace of the mechanics of the Texas law, just like his outrage at its intended policy result, was entirely predictable. 

Indeed, the Firearms Policy Coalition voiced concerns early on that the Lone Star State’s attempt to chill abortion rights might be levied against other protected behaviors in other states. In an amicus brief earlier this year the group warned that laws of this nature could “easily be modified to target persons who marry someone of the ‘wrong’ sex or color, criticize the government, refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated, make negligent or harmless false statements on public issues, or engage in any other protected but disfavored conduct,” such as firearm ownership.

Both Gov. Newsom and SB8’s author, Texas Sen. Bryan Hughes, seem unfazed by the long-term deterioration of rights such maneuvers are likely to have on their citizens. The immediate policy outcomes simply matter more to both men than the fact that SB8—or any similar legislation—acts as a license for government to wholly ignore disfavored constitutional rights. Apparently, process and principles simply don’t matter to many politicians, pundits and activists as much as notching a mark on one’s preferred side of the scoreboard. 

Sen. Hughes has dismissed concerns that his abortion ban could be used as a template to target Second Amendment rights in other states—arguing that firearms, unlike abortion, is on more solid constitutional footing. He is likely correct that the Supreme Court would be more hesitant to erode an enumerated right than alter a court precedent not rooted in any direct constitutional text. That relative weakness of Roe v. Wade’s precedent, for example, was an ongoing concern for liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg… even before Republican appointed judges made up a majority on the bench.  

However, Hughes’ belief that a constitutional argument would somehow shield firearm ownership from infringement is somewhat curious given that the entire point of SB8 was to keep courts from considering such arguments in the first place. In other words, his abortion bill was crafted with the express purpose of chilling a currently protected behavior through intimidation… not for surviving a constitutional argument about the legislation’s ultimate policy goals.  

And that is precisely why Newsom is now entertaining the tactic for his own ends. Indeed, given the frustration gun control advocates feel over their slow moving (and often unsuccessful) attempts to substantially tighten gun laws, the temptation to plagiarize the concept behind the Texas abortion law for different policy preferences won’t be confined only to California. Here in Nevada, for example, Democrats are already finding the future of their limited firearms restrictions running up against the court system, and it seems inevitable they too will be back with new proposals in the next legislative session. 

However, the trail that Hughes has blazed, and Newsom seems willing to follow, will do far more than merely erode the rights certain political agitators happen to dislike. It will, eventually, also injure the rights those very same agitators consider sacrosanct if (or when) a different political faction seizes control of government in the future—which is precisely why Nevada’s coalition of gun control advocates in the Democrat party should keep their distance from Newsom’s latest tactic. 

On issues as controversial, contentious and philosophically nuanced as abortion and gun rights, the process by which reforms are attempted needs to matter at least as much as the policy objectives themselves—regardless of which side of the issue one might align. 

Or, to put it another way: One doesn’t have to be pro-choice to be concerned about what is happening in Texas, nor does one have to be pro-gun to be concerned about Newsom’s plans for California. 

Michael Schaus is a communications and branding consultant based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He is the former communications director for Nevada Policy Research Institute and has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary as a columnist, political humorist, and radio talk show host. Follow him at SchausCreative.com or on Twitter at @schausmichael.