TELL US WHAT YOU REALLY THINK: If Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom didn’t mean to throw a jab at Kevin de León on Wednesday, it certainly sounded like it to de León loyalists in the room. Newsom, who is backing a gun control initiative and feuded with the Senate president pro tem this year about whether to advance such measures legislatively or on the ballot, said at a Sacramento Press Club luncheon that the National Rifle Association has the legislative process licked. “They don’t like direct democracy. They like the legislative process. They can influence that, they can manipulate that, they can water that down, they can just work that system. And they’ve done that magnificently, haven’t they, at the federal level? But this is the game changer. State by state, bottom up, not top down, this is the most powerful message to repudiate the National Rifle Association.”