Vice President Kamala Harris recently made an interesting comment regarding “stand your ground” laws, which provide homeowners with the necessary rights to defend themselves and their families in the event of a home invasion. Despite having criticized firearms in the past, Harris recently suggested that she would use lethal force if someone boke in to her home.
While speaking to Oprah Winfrey last week, the host called out that Harris claimed she was a gun owner in her debate with former President Donald Trump. “I did not know that,” Winfrey noted. “And I thought that was powerful.” Harris stated, “If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot, sorry.”
However, like several other points of her rhetoric that have seemingly changed over the past few years, this stance on firearms and self-defense seem to directly contradict past statements she has made. In 2020, Harris argued that Stand Your Ground laws were racist toward minorities.
“These Stand Your Ground laws and these states that have these citizens’ arrest laws have often, often and frequently been used as an excuse if not a cover for people who are motivated by racism and racial profiling. And so we have seen that. And we have seen that it has been used as an excuse to kill black and brown people, and particularly black and brown young men,” Harris said at the time.
Furthermore, when Harris served as the San Francisco District Attorney in 2007 she also pushed hostile rhetoric regarding gun ownership. At the time, the vice president called out people “quietly sitting” on firearms. “It’s people who own guns who are quietly sitting on those guns,” she said.
“And those guns might end up being the weapons of the destruction of a community cause they get in the hands of some kid who decide that they like what they see on television and they want to act that way. So this is about just basically saying that we’re gonna require responsible behaviors among everybody in the community and just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn’t mean that we’re not gonna walk into that home and check to see if you’re being responsible and safe in the way that you conduct your affairs,” Harris added.
Moreover, part of Harris’ rhetoric during her 2020 primary bid was pushing a “mandatory” gun buyback for “assault weapons.” However, during the presidential debate, Harris seemingly flip-flopped on her previous stance toward guns, maintaining that she would not seek to confiscate guns. Harris said when debating Trump, “This business about taking everyone’s guns away. Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away. So stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.”
Subsequently, many have raised concerns about Harris’ seeming inconsistencies with her stance toward gun ownership. “Can Kamala describe the make and model of the gun she allegedly owns? And explain why she spent years advocating for door-to-door, mandatory gun confiscation? This is called pandering — and nobody is buying the bulls***,” the Trump campaign said.
Watch Harris speaking to Oprah below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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