When it comes to preserving and strengthening our constitutional rights in America, the stakes could not be higher in this presidential election. The Harris-Walz ticket, which brings together two of the most radical gun control extremists in public office, represents the biggest threat to law-abiding American gun owners in modern political history.
Despite recent efforts by her political handlers to walk back her anti-gun positions, Harris has long supported aggressive measures to curtail gun rights for law-abiding citizens. Her history of attacking the Second Amendment cannot and should not be erased by statements from unnamed campaign functionaries desperate to recast Kamala Harris as a moderate despite all evidence to the contrary.
For starters, Harris supports mandatory gun confiscation. In 2019, when running against Joe Biden in the Democratic primary, Harris called for a “mandatory buyback” program for “assault weapons.” Democrats use fear-provoking terms like, “assault weapon” and “weapons of war” to describe widely owned firearms. Harris and many other anti-gun liberals arbitrarily expand the use of these monikers to target more common, legal guns. The present definitions include many semi-automatic firearms commonly used by law-abiding citizens for hunting, self-defense, or recreational shooting.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Harris said, while voicing support for a forced confiscation program. “We have to work out the details, there are a lot of details, but I do - we have to take those guns off the streets.” Indeed, Harris routinely vilifies semi-automatic weapons and proudly advocates for their confiscation.
Now, Harris aides claim that she no longer supports gun confiscation, though the candidate, who has not subjected herself to public scrutiny since launching her campaign, has not made her current position clear. Voters should be highly skeptical of a last-minute transformation especially since Harris has openly bragged about her plans to use her executive powers to enact sweeping limitations on gun rights.
And Harris wants to expand the use of aggressive, “Red Flag” laws, which often allow the seizure of a person’s firearms after a “hearing” where the gun owner doesn’t even have an opportunity to attend. Her running mate, who signed a red flag bill into law in Minnesota, is in complete agreement.
In states like New York, a liberal District Attorney or even a school administrator can decide if someone is a threat to themselves or others and petition the court for an “Extreme Risk Protection Order” to seize the individual’s firearms. If the court accepts the petition, the guns are removed from their home.
New York judges are approving thousands of orders to take firearms away from lawful gun owners. More than 4,300 final orders have been issued under the law, up from 222 in 2021. At least 1,800 guns were removed by the state police and local law enforcement agencies in 2023.
In a Harris-Walz Administration, every state would become like New York, or worse, like Australia.
Ask Kamala Harris about a country with appropriate gun control measures and she applauds Australia. For context, Australia has had a near-total ban on civilian ownership of semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns since 1996. As recently as October of last year Harris praised their draconian gun control measures.
Voters should also be sure to see through the smoke and mirrors. Her running mate, Tim Walz, will often don a camo hat to play up his image as a folksy Midwestern hunter. But he’s proven himself as big a gun grabber as Harris. Walz and Harris are in lockstep in their drive to diminish gun owner rights. Walz opposes efforts to allow states to grant mutual reciprocity for people who are lawfully permitted to carry a concealed firearm. Without reciprocity, law-abiding gun owners face a patchwork of conflicting rules. Consequently, as they cross jurisdictional lines, even unwittingly, they can suddenly find themselves outside of the law.
Both Harris and Walz brazenly insult gun owners by inferring that there is something inherently criminal in gun ownership – a position that flies directly in the face of the meaning and the intent of the Second Amendment.
Voters have never had a clearer choice in a presidential election. The Harris-Walz ticket is actively engaged in a campaign to dramatically erode, if not abolish, the gun rights of most Americans. Gun owners can answer this unlawful threat to the Second Amendment by turning out by the tens of millions to the polls. And if they hope to continue exercising their right to bear arms, to hunt, and to defend themselves and their loved ones, they most certainly should.
Randy Kozuch is the Executive Director of the NRA - Institute for Legislative Action