Gavin Newsom Says 2nd Amendment 'Becoming A Suicide Pact' Amid Mass Shootings

At least seven people were killed in two shootings at Half Moon Bay, two days after a gunman killed at least 11 people at a dance hall in Monterey Park.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Monday said the Second Amendment “is becoming a suicide pact,” amid a string of mass shootings in the past week that have devastated the state.

Speaking to “CBS Evening News” near the scene of Saturday’s deadly Monterey Park shooting where a gunman killed at least 11 people and injured nine others inside a ballroom dance hall, Newsom decried how common those tragedies have become.

“Nothing about this is surprising,” the governor said. “Everything about this is infuriating.”

Newsom blasted the Second Amendment, calling it a “suicide pact” but noting he has nothing against responsible gun owners who undergo background checks and training.

He said California will continue implementing gun control measures as the data supports that approach.

In July, Newsom signed a bill, modeled after Texas’ six-week abortion ban, that allows private citizens to sue gun manufacturers and distributors whose products have caused them harm.

California has a 37% lower gun death rate than the national average, according to the Giffords Law Center.

“And yet, with all that evidence, no one on the other side seems to give a damn,” Newsom told CBS’s Norah O’Donnell. “They can’t getting anything done in Congress.”

Last summer, Biden signed a bipartisan gun safety bill into law, which contained modest curbs on buying guns but failed to include more significant provisions gun safety advocates had been calling for, such as raising the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic rifles to 21, or banning assault weapons.

While California has some of the strictest gun regulations in the country, Monterey Park suspect Huu Can Tran reportedly used a modified 9 mm submachine gun-style semi-automatic weapon, according to The Associated Press. That firearm is illegal in California.

A man whose family owned another business Tran tried to target, confronted him and managed to removed that weapon from his possession. Another handgun was later recovered by authorities inside the suspect’s van.

Newsom pledged authorities will find out how Tran obtained the illegal weapon.

On Monday, two additional shootings took place at Half Moon Bay, killing at least seven people.

Newsom said he was informed of those events while he was in a hospital meeting with victims of the earlier shooting.

“Tragedy upon tragedy,” he wrote on Twitter.

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