Can the Texas Senate Bill model be used for gun control too? Texas Senate Bill 8 takes a legally imaginative route to allow citizens to sue people involved in abortions after week 6 (that is 6 weeks from the most recent period of the woman). This avoids the constitutional restrictions on banning abortions. Another controversial topic in the US is gun control. There are similar constitutional bars on laws that restrict the ownership of guns. Could a state pass a similar law to the Texas law to allow citizens to sue anyone who sells a gun, buys a gun, possesses a gun or similar?
Let's back up. It's premature to say that SB 8 &quot;avoids the constitutional restrictions on banning abortions&quot;. The constitutionality of SB 8 has not been resolved; the Supreme Court said so explicitly (page 2). In fact there is good reason to think that is unconstitutional under existing interpretation of the Constitution per Roe v. Wade and the like. (Whether the court will actually follow existing interpretation is another question, of course.) But the courts do not determine the constitutionality of laws just because someone asks them; they only do so when it needs to be decided to resolve a particular case. For instance, if a person is charged with a crime, they can challenge the constitutionality of the law under which they are charged, and courts will address that question unless the case is resolved some other way. There are also ways that a person who wants to violate the law can pre-emptively sue the government to prevent them from enforcing the law, if they can show such enforcement is likely to affect them. The issue in SB 8 is that since it wouldn't be the government enforcing the law, it's unclear who an abortion provider can pre-emptively sue. In Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson, they tried to sue the State of Texas, its courts, and a private party who they thought might be likely to sue them. The SCOTUS majority found that none of those defendants were relevant. However, if and when an abortion provider actually does get sued, there'll be a clear case which has proper parties and is ripe, and courts then will have to consider whether SB 8 is constitutional or not. So if your hypothetical gun control statute were treated similarly, the law might avoid pre-emptive challenges, with a chilling effect on gun sales. But sooner or later, someone would probably violate the law (maybe deliberately as a test case), and the courts would consider whether it was constitutional or not. Under prevailing interpretations of the Second Amendment, they'd probably find that it wasn't. A key difference, of course, is that abortions are much more time-sensitive than gun purchases; being temporarily blocked from having an abortion is much more consequential in most cases than being temporarily blocked from buying a gun. The other subtext is that, although SCOTUS said their decision in Whole Woman's Health is not based on the constitutionality of SB 8, it's widely suspected that several of the justices are not all that keen on the constitutional right to abortion found in Roe v. Wade, and might look to overturn Roe when it comes up. As such, they may not be very motivated to look for procedural avenues to block SB 8 in the short term, since they might be inclined to uphold it in the long term. The dissenters in Whole Woman's Health certainly thought those avenues were available. But in the case of your hypothetical gun control bill, if a majority of justices were pretty convinced that the law was unconstitutional, they might try harder to come up with grounds to block it pre-emptively.
In Roe v. Wade, the primary holding is that &quot;a person may choose to have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable, based on the right to privacy contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Viability means the ability to live outside the womb, which usually happens between 24 and 28 weeks after conception&quot;. The opinion finds that there does exist a right to privacy, and that it is protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. It is immaterial that there is no mention of abortion in The Constitution. There is also no mention of TV and radio transmissions, the internet, speech-amplifying devices, or automated forms of text reproduction and yet the vague words of the First Amendment w.r.t. &quot;press&quot; and &quot;speech&quot; are interpreted as protecting your right to blog. Revolvers and various other firearms that did not exist at the time of the writing of the constitution are not mentioned, but they (the right to have them) are protected under the Second Amendment. Lack of specific mention is irrelevant to determining constitutional protection. §VIII of the opinion discusses the right of privacy, and the ruling roots the recognition of that right in Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, and numerous other SCOTUS rulings – Stanley v. Georgia, 394 US 557; Terry v. Ohio; Katz v. US, 389 US 347; Boyd v. US, 116 US 616, Olmstead v. US, 277 US 438; Griswold v. Connecticut, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 and so on. You might then look at the Dobbs ruling to see whether those arguments are addressed and refuted. That, at least, is where you would start in understanding the legal background.
Note, Washington State Senate Bill 5061 seeks to block certain "untracable" firearms without a serial number. This relates in part to "3D printable" guns, but the act of milling of a 80% lower (in Washington) could be a violation, if and when it passes. But it appears the bill hasn't been made a law yet... Is Washington specific news this issue what drives the question? Federally, the ATF web site says: Receiver blanks that do not meet the definition of a "firearm" are not subject to regulation under the GCA. The ATF has long held that items such as receiver blanks, "castings" or "machined bodies" in which the fire-control cavity area is completely solid and un-machined have not reached the "stage of manufacture" which would result in the classification of a firearm per the GCA. But this gets a bit technical. For further risk mitigation, the Texan could mitigate any risk related to both Federal and Washington state law by shipping it to a federal firearms licensee (FFL) in Washington as if it were a firearm, per ATM instructions which say (in part): Generally, for a person to lawfully transfer a firearm to an unlicensed person who resides out of State, the firearm must be shipped to a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) within the recipient’s State of residence. He or she may then receive the firearm from the FFL upon completion of an ATF Form 4473 and a NICS background check. That FFL is then responsible for ensuring the transaction properly conducted in the state of Washington, including federal and state requirements. The FFL I contacted only charged $25.00 (plus collecting the state sales tax). Form 4473 was easy enough; only about one page for me to fill out. Of course, I've got a clean record, so going through channels isn't a problem for me, it took less than an hour. The FFL confirmed for me that it wasn't necessary for something like an antique musket, which legally isn't a firearm by the federal defeinitions. In my case the sender was a nervous "trust" lawyer who wasn't sure, hired yet another lawyer to advise him. The FFL didn't charge me anything for receiving that musket.
It is probably illegal in all of the jurisdictions in the US where a fetus is legally declared to be a person and where the murder statutes are written to not explicitly exclude abortion: that is, in no jurisdictions. No law existing or proposed for Georgia specifically addresses "travel for the purpose of getting an abortion". The underlying theory behind the claim (advocated by some Georgia attorneys) is that a person may be open to a conspiracy charge for taking a woman to another state to get an abortion, which would be a crime if committed in Georgia. If a conspiracy exists in Georgia to do something illegal (in Georgia), that is a violation of OCGA 16-4-8 ("when he together with one or more persons conspires to commit any crime and any one or more of such persons does any overt act to effect the object of the conspiracy"). The substantially same law exists in Washington, and most if not all other states. The theory is apparently that "conspire to commit a crime" means something like "conspire to perform an act which would be a crime if performed in in this jurisdiction", e.g. "purchase marijuana, or take a job at certain payday loan companies". No state has successfully claimed extraterritorial jurisdiction, where a Georgia resident can be prosecuted in Georgia for a legal act carried out in another state, so this theory is a bit of a stretch.
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia: Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited ... Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. (emphasis mine)
Let's look at the Ur-example of a free-speech law, and the most wide-ranging, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It says (my emphasis): Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. This limitation applies only to the government. Indeed, it has been argued that this limitation only applies to the legislative branch of government and not to the executive (except when exercising legislatively delegated power) or judicial branches. Certainly, the courts have held that it is within their power to issue "gag" restraining orders. Notwithstanding, it imposes no restrictions on how non-government actors can limit your free speech. The owner of a shopping centre can require you not to evangelise, the owner of a stadium can require you not to use offensive language and the owner of a social media platform can restrict your speech in any way they wish. You have a right to talk - they have a right not to give you a platform.
In Texas, sex offenses are defined in Texas Penal Code § 21.01, et seq., and rape and kindred offenses are defined as sexual assault § 22.011 and aggravated sexual assault § 22.021. None of those laws prohibit the conduct described (assuming adults who are not in a teacher-student relationship with full mental capacity), nor do they prohibit the video as long as there is no intent or threat to disclose it. Of course, not recognizing that it is the same person both times in an in person meeting when they have sex is highly implausible.
A number of states, as well as the US Federal Government, have laws against &quot;fetal homicide&quot;, under which a woman might be prosecuted. The Alabama law, to take one example, defines homicide A person commits criminal homicide if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence causes the death of another person and then defines &quot;person&quot; The term, when referring to the victim of a criminal homicide or assault, means a human being, including an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability. The abortion exception is stated thusly: Article 1 or Article 2 shall not apply to the death or injury to an unborn child alleged to be caused by medication or medical care or treatment provided to a pregnant woman when performed by a physician or other licensed health care provider but this exception, which codified a result of Roe v. Wade, could be repealed. There are various reported arrests, prosecutions and convictions of women reported here in cases where the woman did not obtain the abortion through approved medical channels. Generally, there are statutory provisions that preclude prosecution of women and physicians involved in a legal medical abortion, but you would have to carefully scrutinize the wording of those exceptions. If the exception is expressed unqualifiedly as an exception for abortion, then until the law is changed, a woman could not be prosecuting for obtaining an abortion. But if the exception is framed in terms of obtaining a legal abortion, then when abortions become illegal, prosecution of the woman becomes a possibility.