Economists, Energy Experts Torch Gavin Newsom’s Chevron Boycott

May 24, 2026
7:51 am

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California’s latest gas-price spike isn’t an accident of the market—it’s the predictable result of a decade-long regulatory assault on domestic energy production, and Governor Gavin Newsom’s call to boycott Chevron simply doubles down on the same failed strategy. By chasing away refiners with punitive taxes, endless permitting delays, and a de-facto ban on new drilling, Sacramento has created an artificial scarcity that drives pump prices toward $6 a gallon while simultaneously blaming the very companies that keep fuel flowing. The boycott rhetoric may play well with coastal progressives, but it ignores the basic economic reality that fewer suppliers and tighter margins equal higher costs for every driver, farmer, and small-business owner who depends on affordable transportation. For the Second Amendment community the lesson is straightforward: the same political class that treats energy companies as villains is already treating gun owners the same way. California’s “assault-weapon” registration schemes, magazine bans, and micro-stamping mandates are crafted with the identical goal—raise compliance costs until lawful ownership becomes economically or logistically impractical. When regulators can shutter refineries with a signature, they can shutter FFLs with a regulation; when they can demonize Chevron for “price gouging,” they can demonize Smith & Wesson for “gun violence.” The Chevron episode is therefore a warning shot: any industry that supplies a constitutionally protected activity is one election away from being labeled a public enemy and subjected to the same boycott-and-bankrupt playbook. The broader implication is that energy policy and gun rights are converging fronts in a single culture war over individual liberty. Californians who cannot afford to fill their tanks are also the ones being priced out of the firearms market by transfer fees, background-check delays, and ammunition taxes. Restoring affordable fuel and restoring the right to keep and bear arms both require the same remedy—rolling back the administrative state that decides which businesses and which citizens are allowed to exist. Until that happens, expect more staged boycotts, more manufactured shortages, and more attempts to make constitutional rights too expensive for ordinary Americans to exercise.

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For the Second Amendment community the lesson is straightforward: the same political class that treats energy companies as villains is already treating gun owners the same way. California’s “assault-weapon” registration schemes, magazine bans, and micro-stamping mandates are crafted with the identical goal—raise compliance costs until lawful ownership becomes economically or logistically impractical. When regulators can shutter refineries with a signature, they can shutter FFLs with a regulation; when they can demonize Chevron for “price gouging,” they can demonize Smith & Wesson for “gun violence.” The Chevron episode is therefore a warning shot: any industry that supplies a constitutionally protected activity is one election away from being labeled a public enemy and subjected to the same boycott-and-bankrupt playbook.

The broader implication is that energy policy and gun rights are converging fronts in a single culture war over individual liberty. Californians who cannot afford to fill their tanks are also the ones being priced out of the firearms market by transfer fees, background-check delays, and ammunition taxes. Restoring affordable fuel and restoring the right to keep and bear arms both require the same remedy—rolling back the administrative state that decides which businesses and which citizens are allowed to exist. Until that happens, expect more staged boycotts, more manufactured shortages, and more attempts to make constitutional rights too expensive for ordinary Americans to exercise.

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