Vice President Kamala Harris showed her true colors back in 2007 when, as the San Francisco district attorney, she told Californians that law enforcement officers could walk into private citizens’ homes and inspect how they were storing their firearms.
“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 said at the time.
Interestingly, less than a week after that statement was revealed on social media, the Democratic presidential nominee told Oprah Winfrey during a live-streamed rally, “If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot.”
In what was probably the most honest statement she has made on the campaign trail as Oprah looked on kind of surprised, Harris followed up her declaration laughingly saying, “I probably should not have said that. But my staff will deal with that later.” And they are.
The irony is rich with this one. A person who thinks law enforcement can just walk into your home and inspect your firearms says she’ll shoot someone breaking into her house. What if they “break in” to make sure she is storing her gun properly? Will she still shoot, even though she believes that’s completely appropriate?
Of course, those questions are moot, as Harris will never have to make the gut-wrenching decision about whether or not to shoot an intruder. Unlike normal Americans, she has a full-time Secret Service detail guarding her around the clock. If there’s any shooting of intruders that needs to be done, they’ll be the ones doing it—not Harris. She just says things like that in an effort to try to convince people that she’s a normal person like you or me, not a political elite who lives in a different, much better-protected world than the rest of us.
Despite that, campaign officials quickly tried to walk back Harris’ statement about shooting intruders. On Friday, Harris campaign adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms brushed aside the vice president’s remark, saying it was just a “joke,” as if joking about shooting anyone is funny.
“It was a joke, and she knew that we would still be talking about it today, but I think it‘s important that people know that the vice president respects the right to bear arms, that she supports the Second Amendment, but she wants responsible gun ownership and she wants our communities to be safe,” Bottoms said.
Gun Owner Claims Questioned
Incidentally, during the Oprah appearance Harris also mentioned once again that she is a gun owner and “respects the Second Amendment.” So far, however, she hasn’t yet said what kind of gun she owns, leaving even some in Congress skeptical about whether the statement is true or not.
U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky, voiced that sentiment on a Fox News program on Sunday.
“Well, look, I don’t think anyone believes that Kamala Harris is a gun owner,” Comer told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. “But, if she is, she needs to tell the American people what type of gun she has.”
Comer’s statement came in response to Harris’ “revelation” during the recent presidential debate with former President Donald Trump.
“This business about taking everyone’s guns away—Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” Harris said during the debate. “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away, so stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.” For the record, Harris had made that point in a less publicized interview with CNN in 2019.
Of course, Harris has also repeatedly said she wants to ban AR-style rifles. And during her run for president in 2019, she voiced her approval for “buying back” such firearms, a more politically correct term for compensated confiscation and making them “mandatory.”
During Sunday’s Fox interview, Comer also slammed Harris for focusing on guns and not on the runaway violent crime plaguing the country.
“This is all about crime,” he said. “And when you look at the polling, Biden and Harris are getting killed in the polling with the issue of crime, which is a huge issue in the suburbs and it’s definitely an issue in urban America.”
