Nobody’s Buying Kamala Harris’ ‘I’m a Gun Owner’ Shtick

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.

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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