At a campaign event with Oprah Winfrey, Vice President Kamala Harris repeated that she is a gun owner and tried to convince voters she has flip-flopped on a gun confiscation plan with a new anecdote.
Winfrey hosted a livestreamed town hall filled with celebrities from Michigan with Harris. There, Winfrey told her she was surprised to learn Harris was a gun owner during the presidential debate earlier this month.
“If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot,” Harris responded. “Probably should not have said that. My staff will deal with that later.”
Harris: “I’m a gun owner, Tim Walz is a gun owner”
Oprah: “I did not know that!”
Harris: “If someone breaks into my house they’re getting shot — Probably should not have said that, but my staff will deal with that later” pic.twitter.com/hiZWc7YWYt
— Polling USA (@USA_Polling) September 20, 2024
She made the comment during a discussion about gun control, in which Harris said she supports stronger background checks and reinstating a federal ban on “assault weapons.”
“Here’s my point, Oprah. I’m not trying to take everyone’s guns away. I believe in the Second Amendment,” Harris said. “These are just common sense.”
During the presidential debate, Harris responded to former President Donald Trump’s comment that Harris “wants to confiscate your guns” by saying she is, in fact, a gun owner.
“This business about taking everyone’s guns away, Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” Harris said Tuesday night. “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away. So stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.”
The fact may have come as a surprise to some, but Harris also said she was a gun owner when she ran for president during the 2020 election, in which she said she was a gun owner for “personal safety” reasons.
“I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety,” Harris told reporters after a campaign event in 2019. “I was a career prosecutor.”
The definition of “assault weapon” continues to be blurred. Second Amendment advocates argue that “assault weapons” bans would outlaw the production and exchange of most semiautomatic weapons.
When she was a candidate in 2019, Harris told several outlets and hosts that she supported a “mandatory gun buyback” program as a way of decreasing the number of firearms in the country.
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“We have to have a buyback program. And I support a mandatory buyback program,” Harris told MSNBC’s Gun Safety Forum in 2019. “We’re going to have smart public policy that’s about taking those off the streets. But doing it in the right way.”
Harris has avoided talking about confiscation and buyback programs on the trail this time around, though she has repeatedly told hosts and moderators that she and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), are gun owners.