In an effort to convince voters she’s not anti-Second Amendment, Kamala Harris often emphatically claims that she herself is a gun owner. She even said, while cackling during her Oprah Winfrey interview, that anyone breaking into her home is “getting shot.” (Does this standard apply to breaking into countries, too?) But her Dirty Harry routine isn’t working with everyone. Just consider an MSN commenter whose post I recently featured as a “Comment of the Day.”
“She’s a gun owner,” the man wrote. “So were Stalin, Hitler and Saddam. Not surprisingly, gun laws did not apply to them, they made sure of it.”
Now evidence has emerged, too, that Harris is also of the mindset, “Guns for me, not for thee.”
That is, nearly two decades ago, the now-Democratic presidential nominee sponsored a measure to seize San Franciscans’ handguns.
The measure was so extreme that even then-San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom and late U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the latter of whom was notoriously pro-gun control, balked.
What’s more, Harris advocated gun confiscation as recently as 2019, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination. These are just a couple of examples, too, of why the politician was ranked 2019’s most left-wing senator. Note, this means she was left of even Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Senate’s only avowed socialist. (Harris has since flip-flopped on many of the positions that earned her that ranking. Political ambition works wonders — at least temporarily.)
Harris 1.0, Harris 2.0, and…What’s Next?
The New York Post reports on Harris’ handgun-seizure effort, writing:
Vice President Kamala Harris has made a point of describing herself as a gun owner during her past two runs for the White House.
But nearly two decades ago, the then-San Francisco district attorney backed a firearm confiscation measure that even made some prominent gun control advocates skittish.
Harris was listed as a sponsor of Proposition H, which would have barred San Francisco residents from possessing, distributing or manufacturing handguns, the San Jose Mercury News reported at the time.
“San Francisco was a leader in proposing gun restrictions at the local level, and [Harris] never met a gun control law she didn’t like,” California attorney Chuck Michel, who represented the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups in challenging the measure, told the Reload….
Harris, 59, does not appear to have spoken out extensively about the measure — which was approved by San Francisco voters on Election Day 2005, but struck down by state courts before it could take effect.
Residents would have had four months to surrender their weapons if the measure was enacted, with exemptions for certain professions like law enforcement [and powerful left-wing politicians?].
Power Grubber and Gun Grabber
This anti-Second Amendment hostility is a pattern with Harris, too. As the Washington Examiner wrote Friday, an
authoritarian impulse has always been part of Harris’s gun control worldview. During the 2020 primary, she boasted that as president, she would give Congress 100 days to pass the gun control legislation she wanted. If Congress refused, Harris said she would impose it by executive order. This is not some twisted interpretation of vague promises she made. She actually said it on national television. “Upon being elected, I will give Congress 100 days to get their act together and have the courage to pass reasonable gun safety laws, and if they fail to do it, then I will take executive action,” Harris said.
As is the constant question with Harris, was she lying in 2019 when she was trying to position herself as the most left-wing Democrat in the primary, or is she lying now when trying to portray herself as a centrist Democrat?
If the answer still eludes anyone, just consider the following gem, courtesy of Fox News:
As San Francisco’s district attorney, Kamala Harris told legal gun owners in her community that authorities could “walk into” their homes to inspect whether they were storing their firearms properly under a new law she helped draft.
“We’re going to 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 going to walk into that home and check to see if you’re being responsible and safe in the way you conduct your affairs,” Harris told a group of reporters in May 2007.
Still Proposing Bad Gun Policy
In reality, Harris hasn’t changed; she’s simply massaging her message to improve her election chances. Just consider how she supports a so-called “assault weapons ban,” which would trample freedom without lowering crime even one iota. The reason?
“Assault weapon” is a propaganda term; the firearms in question are merely semiautomatic rifles. (I.e., one shot is released with every trigger pull.) Most significantly, the FBI informs that “personal weapons — defined as “hands, fists, and feet” — are used in more murders than are rifles of any and all kinds. In other words, imagine that, somehow, you could take every long gun tendentiously called an “assault weapon” off the street. It wouldn’t even move the needle on the homicide rate.
This raises a question, too. Harris “has sidestepped repeated questions about whether she would like a ban on handguns,” the Post also tells us. And that’s telling. Besides, the faux “assault weapons” are used in almost no murders; handguns are used in 59 percent of gun murders. So if Harris wants to ban the former, why wouldn’t she ban the latter, too — given enough power?
So whom should we believe, the actions-in-power Harris or the campaign-trail Harris? Someone she’d surely claim to respect, the late poet Maya Angelou, long ago provided the answer.
“When someone shows you who they are,” she warned, “believe them the first time.”
