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 act, which barred the ownership and transfer of more than 50 different gun models, unlawful.
“California’s answer to the criminal misuse of a few is to disarm its many good residents. That knee-jerk reaction is constitutionally untenable, just as it was 250 years ago,” Benitez wrote in the conclusion of his decision.
Both times Benitez intervened in the state’s plans to keep law-abiding Americans from owning guns, corporate media amplified Newsom’s fiery reaction.
The press’s positive posture towards Newsom’s grandstanding strongly contrasts its relentless scrutiny of Republicans who oppose rulings by left-wing judges. Former President Donald Trump, especially, took the brunt of the media’s condemnation.
From even before Trump was inaugurated to after he left office, corporate media called his history of disagreeing with judicial decisions “out of line with past presidents” and painted it as behavior that could “threaten U.S. rule of law.” Leftist outlets and activists alike accused Trump and his “troubling” tweets of politicizing the courts and compromising judges’ safety.
In 2017, mere months after Trump took office, The Washington Post compiled a list of “all the times Trump personally attacked judges” and spent paragraphs explaining “why his tirades are ‘worse than wrong’.”
Even now, as a currently unelected civilian, Trump faces unprecedented punishment for criticizing judges and members of the corrupt Department of Justice.
Democrats from Sen. Chuck Schumer to the Biden White House have waged verbal wars and encouraged retaliation against the judges and courts that don’t do their bidding. Newsom, a prospective presidential candidate for Democrats, has only added to their ranks with his tirade blaming Benitez’s ruling for future gun violence.
The corrupt corporate media clearly hold a double standard for Democrats who undermine the judiciary. Outlets’ willingness to amplify and even conjure up smears of Republican-nominated judges like Benitez proves that.
