It’s always a bit humorous when anti-gunners try to establish that they, too, are gun owners who just want reasonable restrictions on firearms to reduce homicides.
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Watching them in action almost feels like watching a kid learning how to ride a bike for the first time. Such was the case with Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent sit-down with Oprah Winfrey in which she postured as a pro-gun maven who wouldn’t hesitate to throw some lead at someone threatening her.
“If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot,” Harris said during the livestreamed segment.
During her debate against former President Donald Trump, Harris touted her status as a gun owner when he rightly brought up her hostility toward gun ownership. “We’re not taking anyone’s guns away, so stop with the continuous lying about this stuff,” she said.
Yet, over the years, Harris has endorsed a number of anti-gun positions, some of which she has tried to walk back for the current presidential campaign. She was an ardent proponent of a federal gun buyback program in 2019.
Gun buyback proposals would force gun owners to hand over their AR-15s and other assault-style weapons to the government.
They gained steam during the last election’s Democratic presidential primary race, when they received endorsements from a number of senior Democrats including Harris.
In October 2019, said she supported taking the nation’s millions of assault weapons “off the streets, but doing it in the right way”.
Buyback initiatives have taken place in cities across the US since at least the 1970s, though research indicates that they are often very expensive and not effective as a standalone strategy to curb gun violence.
Advocates, however, point to the impact of two mandatory buybacks in Australia following the deadliest mass shooting on its soil in 1996. The country has largely avoided mass firearm violence since that incident.
Harris made her own case for buybacks as part of a broader effort to rein in the “clear problem” of gun violence. She argued that politicians were offering voters “a false choice” between protecting gun rights and taking guns away.
But by the time the 2024 presidential debate came round, ABC News moderator Linsey Davis noted that Harris no longer supported a buyback programme.
Harris did not directly explain why, and her campaign did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
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Harris has also pushed for expanding background checks to cover all gun purchases, including private transfers, ostensibly to ensure that those with criminal backgrounds or histories of domestic abuse do not obtain firearms.
The vice president has argued in favor of reinstating the federal assault weapons ban, which did nothing to reduce gun crime. She seeks to ban the sale of “weapons of war,” which have been used in several mass shootings. Of course, this ignores the fact that the overwhelming majority of mass shootings are committed using handguns.
Harris is also quite fond of red flag laws and bans on high-capacity magazines. It is also worth noting that she is heading up the White House’s new Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which will be just another vehicle to enact anti-gun policy.
Even further, the Biden-Harris administration imposed several gun control measures through executive orders and the weaponization of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) against gun owners.
The White House, under President Joe Biden and Harris, expanded the definition of gun seller, requiring that anyone who sells a gun for profit must be licensed and conduct background checks.
The administration also imposed a measure to curb the existence of “ghost guns,” which are privately manufactured firearms without serial numbers. The supposed aim is to prevent criminals from obtaining untraceable guns. In reality, it only criminalizes people who make their own firearms, as was the case of Dexter Taylor in New York City.
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The Biden-Harris administration has also cracked down on gun sellers, revoking the licenses of dealers who make small clerical errors on their paperwork. In this way, they seek to impede gun ownership by going after those who sell firearms.
Nobody should be fooled by Harris’ contention that she is a gun owner. Those in the anti-gun crowd don’t necessarily believe that nobody should own a firearm. Rather, they believe only certain people should be allowed to arm themselves. These include elites, government officials, and anyone who isn’t part of the unwashed masses.
As I’ve said before, Harris and her ilk want your guns. While they may not seek to disarm the populace fully – at least not at this time – it is clear they want to make it as difficult as possible to keep and bear arms.