TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — The legal strategy used to ban most abortions in Texas is increasingly being employed in Republican-led states to target pornography, LGBT rights and other hot-button cultural issues.

While private residents filing lawsuits is a fixture of some arenas like environmental law, some warn that expanding it and applying it to new areas could have a boomerang effect if Democrats were to use it on issues like gun control.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the measure could become a model that infringes on constitutional rights in other areas.

The concept has already popped up on issues ranging from federal gun law in Missouri transgender-student bathroom use in Tennessee.

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