When California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom learned that one of his state’s prized gun bans did not withstand constitutional scrutiny, he was furious.
In a tirade posted to social media on Thursday, Newsom accused United States District Court Judge Roger Benitez, who has a history of striking down the blue state’s attempts to infringe on Californians’ Second Amendment rights, of being a “right-wing, NRA puppet” whose latest decision was “an absolute disgrace.”
“This is exactly why America needs a constitutional amendment to enshrine commonsense gun safety reforms. Until then, extremist judges will continue to tear down the will of the American people,” Newsom wrote on X.
The Democrat repeated his angry sentiments in an official statement which accused Benitez of “making it more dangerous for our kids to go to school, for families to go to the mall, or to attend a place of worship.”
By the time Newsom publicized his disdain, California Attorney General Rob Bonta had already filed a notice of appeal to overturn in which he called Benitez’s decision “dangerous and misguided.”
Newsom expressed a similar level of fury toward Benitez in 2021 when the judge first deemed the state’s sweeping 1989 semi-automatic gun ban unconstitutional, before the 9th Circuit vacated his ruling and remanded the case back to him following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Thanks to the Bruen decision, Benitez returned to the California case armed with more precedent to declare the
