By Mark Oliva, NSSF
Vice President Kamala Harris is giving up the trade secrets. If she gets elected, she wouldn’t change thing. She laid it out in one soft-pitch interview and when asked in a later made-for-television event, she went mum. Guess that means she thinks things are just fine.
“There is not a thing that comes to mind. I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact,” Vice President Harris told Sonny Hostin, when the co-host of The View, asked if she would do anything different than President Joe Biden.
As if that weren’t enough, later the same day, Vice President Harris doubled-down on her “more of the same” agenda when Late Show host Stephen Colbert asked, “You are a member of the present administration, but under a Harris administration, what would the major changes be, and what would stay the same?”
Vice President Harris answer was her typical “word salad.” There was mention of “love of the American people,” “aspirations” and “dreams” and her still-to-be-defined “opportunity economy.”
What wasn’t included was any policy changes which could help voters decide for whom to cast their ballot. In other words – it was a complete dodge. That tells America – nothing will change. Same answer as she gave The View. Nothing comes to mind. If it did, she would have said it.
More of the Same
For the firearm industry, more of the same is hardly an acceptable answer. More of the same is inviting more policy agendas driven by special-interest donors that saddle the firearm industry with punishing directives that do nothing to improve community safety. They do everything, though, to decimate Second Amendment rights and the industry that makes exercising those rights possible.
Here’s what “nothing comes to mind” means for the firearm industry. It means more punishing “zero-tolerance” policies by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The agency tasked with regulating the industry would instead continue to be used as hammer to drive licensees out of business. The Biden-Harris administration hasn’t hoped to do this. They have done with dismaying results. Earlier this year, ATF published data that showed license revocations nearly doubled in 2024 from a year before and 88 federal firearms licenses were surrendered rather than spending the time, effort, money and legal consequences of fighting the Washington, D.C., bureau.
“More of the same” for the firearm industry by Vice President Harris means allegations and dodging by The White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention when they get caught red-handed colluding with gun control billionaire Micheal Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety to bring frivolous lawsuits against firearm manufacturers. The U.S. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has been waiting for what was billed as “transparent administration” to turn over documents for his investigation. The White House refused and instead hurled counteraccusations. Now, they face a subpoena.
Expect more of that if Vice President Harris is elected. After all, she’s President Joe Biden’s gun control czar.
Nothing New, Except…
Expect more attacks on Second Amendment rights. Vice President Harris, for all her efforts to “reimagine” herself as a regular gun owner, is anything but one. She would ban the most-popular selling centerfire rifle in America – the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR), and has supported confiscating them from law-abiding Americans. She attacks the AR-15-style rifle as an “assault weapon,” despite the fact it is semiautomatic. That means it operates the same way as her GLOCK – or her running mate Wisconsin Gov. Tim Walz’s pheasant shotgun.
Vice President Harris’ “nothing comes to mind” gun control agenda means she’s good with an administration that cranks out executive orders and churns out new rules to create criminal law from thin air and that extend well-beyond the authority the Executive Branch was given by Congress.
Doubling down on what the Biden-Harris administration has already done means the complete weaponization from the whole-of-government to hobble the firearm industry and make it impossible for American manufacturing to compete in the world market. That would see an extension – or possibly more stringent – throttling of U.S. firearm manufacturers being able to export firearms and ammunition. The Biden-Harris team hobbled those exports to willing buyers in foreign countries in the name of international security, despite the ATF reporting that only about 1 percent of legally exported firearms recovered at overseas crime scenes are traced to a lawful U.S. export.
Compare that with the Biden-Harris administration that left behind over $7 billion of military equipment during the ill-fated and rushed exit from Afghanistan, including 258,000 M-16/M-4 and AK-47 rifle variants, 56,000 machine guns and 31,000 rocket propelled grenade launchers. That’s not including the 1,845 mortar systems and millions of mortar rounds, and 224 122mm howitzer artillery systems. On top of that, the “Merchant of Death” Viktor Bout was handed back to Russia in a prisoner swap for WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner is back on the court and Bout is back to funneling guns – now allegedly to Iranian-back Houthi terrorists.
So much for international arms control.
Vice President Harris would be completely comfortable in repealing the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). First, it would be the crown jewel for her big money special-interest, gun control donors. Second, it would flood the courts with frivolous lawsuits that have been thrown out. To be fair, those same claims were thrown out before PLCAA, but they were never intended to be successful. They were intended to bleed the industry through “death by a thousand cuts,” according to disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo who said as much when he was President Bill Clinton’s Housing and Urban Development Secretary. The “lawfare” was clear, make the industry bend the knee to court-ordered settlements to impose gun control measures repeatedly rejected by Congress and state legislatures or bankrupt the industry, whichever came first.
Vice President Harris thinks “there’s nothing that comes to mind” that she would do different. NSSF has a few ideas that start with ending her attacks on Americans’ Second Amendment rights. That’s why each and every gun owner must get registered, get active, bring a friend and #GUNVOTE on Nov. 5. Don’t Risk Your Rights.
