Harris, Trump Clash Over Whether She’ll ‘Confiscate Everybody’s Gun’

The primary presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris received heated over whether or not the Democrat would attempt to confiscate firearms if elected.

On Tuesday night time, Trump accused Harris of eager to take People’ weapons away at a number of factors throughout the debate. She made a degree of responding to these accusations.

“She has a plan to confiscate all people’s gun,” Trump mentioned.

“This enterprise about taking everybody’s weapons away; Tim Walz and I are each gun house owners. We’re not taking anybody’s weapons away,” Harris responded a couple of minutes later. “So, cease with the continual mendacity about these things.”

The change, which lasted only some seconds of the two-hour debate, was probably the most substantive on the problem of firearms in any debate throughout this election season. The difficulty didn’t come up in any respect within the debate between Trump and President Joe Biden or the Republican major debates, which Trump skipped. As they’ve all cycle, weapons took a again seat to many different points regardless of a high-profile taking pictures at a Georgia highschool final week.

ABC Information moderator Linsey Davis first introduced Harris’s report on gun confiscation into the controversy. As a part of a broader query about a number of place adjustments, she introduced up the Harris marketing campaign’s stroll again of her 2019 help for a compulsory buyback of so-called assault weapons.

“You needed necessary buybacks for assault weapons. Now your marketing campaign says you don’t,” Davis mentioned earlier than asking Harris why so a lot of her coverage positions had modified.

Harris didn’t straight deal with the buyback a part of Davis’s query, however Trump claimed, “She needs to confiscate your weapons” in his follow-up. The pair revisited the problem once more towards the top of the controversy when Harris insisted she, as a gun proprietor, wouldn’t take individuals’s weapons away.

The talk stems from Harris’s failed 2019 presidential bid when she was considered one of a number of Democratic major candidates who backed a pressured buyback of no less than some weapons. Her proposal centered on making house owners promote their assault weapons, usually outlined as semi-automatic firearms able to accepting removable magazines and that includes sure banned options–usually together with in style rifles just like the AR-15.

“We’ve got to have a buyback program, and I help a compulsory gun buyback program,” she mentioned at an October 2019 discussion board.

Nevertheless, shortly after she took excessive of the Democratic ticket, her marketing campaign mentioned she now not supported that place.

“Right, the VP is not going to push for a compulsory purchase again as president,” Lauren Hitt, a Harris spokesperson, instructed The Reload in July. “She has expressed help for crimson flag legal guidelines, common background checks and an assault weapons ban.”

Harris additionally talked about proudly owning a gun again throughout her 2019 marketing campaign.

“I’m a gun proprietor, and I personal a gun for in all probability the explanation lots of people do – for private security,” she mentioned throughout an April 2019 occasion. “I used to be a profession prosecutor.”

CNN reported on the time {that a} Harris aide instructed them Harris owns a handgun and had for years. The Harris Marketing campaign didn’t reply to a Reload request for touch upon what sort of handgun she owns.

In 2024, Harris has as a substitute centered on a gross sales ban on the weapons in query. She’s additionally backed common background checks and “Crimson Flag” legal guidelines, although she’s but to supply particular particulars on these proposals. Nevertheless, she has made them a outstanding a part of her social gathering’s platform and her stump speeches.

“On this election, many different basic freedoms are at stake,” Harris mentioned throughout her DNC acceptance speech. “The liberty to stay protected from gun violence in our faculties, communities, and locations of worship.”

Trump has taken a unique strategy. Whereas he hasn’t modified positions on gun coverage, he has been noticeably quiet on the problem. Republicans eliminated gun-rights coverage guarantees from their 2024 platform, and Trump utterly prevented the problem throughout his RNC acceptance speech.

The Harris Marketing campaign known as for a second debate to happen in October, in accordance with Reuters, however the two sides haven’t agreed to an occasion but.