Kamala Harris Says She Owns a Glock

The Democratic Presidential Nominee owns one of the widespread handguns in America.

On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris revealed what sort of pistol she owns. Whereas she first publicly mentioned she owned a handgun throughout her first marketing campaign for president in 2019, she and her marketing campaign had not mentioned what sort of gun till now. In an interview with Invoice Whitaker of 60 Minutes, Harris mentioned her gun is a Glock.

“I’ve a Glock, and– I’ve had it for fairly a while,” Harris mentioned. “And– I imply, look, Invoice, my background is in regulation enforcement. And– so there you go.”

When requested, she additionally mentioned she had fired her gun.

“Sure. (snicker) In fact, I’ve,” Harris mentioned. “At a taking pictures vary. Sure, after all, I’ve.”

Harris’s feedback reply among the fundamental questions surrounding her gun possession. Nonetheless, they go away many extra unaddressed. Whereas Harris mentioned she’d owned her Glock for a while, she didn’t reveal precisely when she bought the gun. Nor did she say what particular Glock mannequin she owned and whether or not it’s on the roster of “secure” handguns that the majority California residents are restricted to buying or if she purchased an off-roster gun underneath the regulation enforcement exemption. Actually, all Glock fashions are thought of “unsafe” handguns underneath the state’s present normal as a result of none of them embrace the required loaded chamber indicator or journal disconnect security. Some older-generation Glocks have been grandfathered onto the roster and can be found for buy by common Californians as a result of they have been already bought within the state earlier than the roster’s implementation.

Moreover, she didn’t tackle how she squares her earlier help for a 2005 measure that may have banned handgun possession for many San Francisco residents along with her present handgun possession. The Harris Marketing campaign didn’t reply to The Reload‘s request to reply these questions. It additionally prevented comparable questions from The New York Occasions for a bit it revealed on Sunday.

Based on a up to date report from the San Jose Mercury Press and an account from the gun-rights lawyer who finally defeated the ban, Harris was one of many few metropolis officers to again the handgun ban throughout the early days of her tenure as San Francisco District Lawyer.

“Though Mayor Gavin Newsom has not taken a place, a number of of the town’s most liberal leaders are supporting the far-reaching ban — together with District Lawyer Kamala Harris and 4 supervisors who’re listed as sponsors,” Mary Anne Ostrom reported on the time–including that Dianne Feinstein, who instituted her personal failed pistol ban when mayor, additionally declined to again the 2005 ban. “Feinstein, now a U.S. senator, shouldn’t be taking a place on Proposition H, as a result of she feels the state’s prime court docket has already dominated, a spokesman mentioned.”

Proposition H would have banned the manufacture, sale, and even possession of pistols by metropolis residents who weren’t energetic obligation regulation enforcement, navy, or safety guards. It handed in 2005. A California appeals court docket threw the measure out in 2008.

Harris would play a extra energetic function in implementing quite a few gun restrictions as she rose up the federal government ranks over the following twenty years. After Proposition H failed, she backed a gun storage measure and mentioned police would implement it by going into lawful gun house owners’ houses to examine their setups–although it’s unclear if that ever truly occurred. She additionally signed on to a short within the Supreme Court docket’s landmark Washington, DC v. Heller case, arguing that metropolis’s handgun ban didn’t violate the Second Modification–a place the Court docket rejected.

As California Lawyer Common in 2013, Harris licensed “microstamping” gun tracing expertise as viable. Nonetheless, since no firm has ever applied the expertise on any manufacturing pistol, the end result was an efficient ban on new handgun fashions in California till the state gave up on defending it in court docket earlier this yr. In 2019, throughout her first run for President, Harris repeatedly backed a compulsory buyback plan for “assault weapons” reminiscent of the favored AR-15, even praising Australia’s obligatory buyback regulation as just lately as final yr.

Since taking excessive of the Democratic ticket in July, Harris has sought to melt her positions on gun management. Her marketing campaign walked again her help for forcing People to promote sure weapons to the federal government and as a substitute emphasised a platform centered on the identical three insurance policies President Joe Biden had already been working on.

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

At her debate with Republican Nominee and Former President Donald Trump, she started to emphasise her personal gun possession as a counter to the previous’s assaults on her file.

“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 mentioned on the debate, a line she’s repeated each time the subject has come up since.

Emphasizing her private possession of a handgun has been her go-to transfer ever since. Throughout a current marketing campaign occasion, she even informed Oprah Winfrey, “If anyone breaks in my home, they’re getting shot.”

For his half, Trump has not emphasised gun coverage a lot throughout the marketing campaign. Republicans stripped all gun coverage guarantees from their 2024 platform, and Trump snubbed the problem throughout his record-long acceptance speech. Regardless of being shot with an AR-15 in an assassination try and shedding his gun rights after a jury convicted him of a number of felonies, Trump has maintained his opposition to most new gun restrictions, together with a ban on ARs, and is slated to talk to the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation for the third time this yr at a Georgia occasion throughout October twenty second.

Voters have persistently ranked weapons as a mid-to-low-level challenge within the 2024 race. Nonetheless, most additionally view the problem as essential to their vote, and gun gross sales have begun to select up as election day nears. In a race as shut as this one, if gun coverage strikes even a small proportion of the voters, the problem may assist decide the end result.