Harris’ Actions on Guns Speak Louder Than Her Campaign Rhetoric

In a lame attempt to run away from her radical anti-gun and anti-Second Amendment record, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has spent the last several weeks claiming that she is a gun owner. This, of course, is irrelevant to her extreme record of attacking gun rights.

In fact, Harris isn’t even the first anti-gun politician from San Francisco to own a gun. The late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) spent much of her career working to diminish Second Amendment rights and, like Harris, advocating for gun confiscation. However, when her family came under attack from left-wing terrorists while she was a San Francisco supervisor in the mid-1970s, Feinstein sought the protection of a .38-caliber revolver.

Judging from Harris’s record, she shares this “guns for me, but not for thee” attitude.

During a mid-September interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harris boasted that she would use her firearm to shoot a home invader. Then, during a recent 60 Minutes interview, Harris was asked what type of firearm she owns, to which she responded that she owns a Glock semiautomatic handgun. This detail is important, because Harris has repeatedly worked to restrict or ban ordinary citizens from possessing the very firearm she claims to own for self-defense.

Harris Supported a Handgun Ban in San Francisco

In 2005, when Harris was San Francisco district attorney, the now-vice president was listed as a sponsor of Proposition H, which was a ballot measure that sought to ban the possession of ALL handguns in the city. While the measure was approved by far-left San Francisco voters, it was struck down by the courts after NRA challenged it.

To be clear, this was not a ban on the future sale or possession of handguns, it was a ban on ALL handguns, which means, had it stood, firearms would either have to be removed from the city or turned over to authorities (i.e., confiscated).

Moreover, in January 2006, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom sent a letter to the city Board of Supervisors requesting the maximum jailtime available under state law for those who violated the city handgun ban. Specifically, the letter read,

In accordance with Proposition H and in consultation with the Chief of Police, District Attorney, Sheriff and the City Attorney, we are calling for the maximum penalty under state law for city residents who violate this voter approved ordinance. (emphasis added)

Harris Supported a Handgun Ban in D.C.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case District of Columbia v. Heller. The case concerned a challenge to Washington, D.C.’s total ban on handgun ownership. In overruling the ban, the Court made clear that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, including self-defense.

If it was up to Harris, Americans would not enjoy an individual right to keep and bear arms – including the right to possess a handgun at home for self-defense.

In 2008, Harris was the San Francisco district attorney. In this capacity, Harris endorsed an amicus curiae brief of district attorneys in support of the District of Columbia and its handgun ban in the Heller case. In a January 2008 press release touting the brief, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office explained that Harris was “leading” this effort to support the unconstitutional handgun ban.

Harris Supported Law that Effectively Banned Semiauto Handguns

Under California law, for a handgun to be sold directly to ordinary citizens, it must be listed on the state’s “Roster of Certified Handguns.” Handgun manufacturers must apply to have their handguns listed on the roster, pay a fee, submit a sample for testing, and manufacture the firearm with certain specifications.

Further, the specifications a handgun must meet to be included on the roster have been amended over time. Handguns already on the roster that don’t meet these specifications are allowed to be sold, but new handguns that don’t meet the new requirements are not.

As California gun rights attorney Konstadinos Moros explained in an excellent article on X.com, the nature of these shifting handgun specifications created a ban on modern semiautomatic handguns in the Golden State. Moros explained,

As of 2007, for a new-to-market semiautomatic centerfire handgun to avoid the “unsafe” classification and be eligible for sale, the handgun needed to have both a chamber load indicator (“CLI”) and a magazine disconnect mechanism (“MDM”), in addition to passing a drop safety test and passing a firing reliability test. CAL. PENAL CODE §§ 31910(b)(5), 31900, & 31905.

This immediately constrained the California handgun market, as most modern handguns do not have CLIs or MDMs.

Moreover, California law demanded that all new handguns placed on the roster must contain microstamping technology once it is available. For more information on this unworkable technology, please click here.

As Moros pointed out:

On May 17, 2013, then-Attorney General of California Kamala Harris decided to issue a certification that the microstamping technology is available to more than one manufacturer unencumbered by any patent restrictions. From then on, a semiautomatic handgun could only be sold in California if it had an MDM, CLI, and microstamping.

The obvious issue was that the technology did not exist outside of a laboratory setting, and it still does not today.

See the certification by clicking here.

This certification acted as a ban on new models of semiautomatic handguns in California. Thanks, in part, to Harris, manufacturers like Glock could not sell new or upgraded versions of their handguns directly to ordinary citizens in California.

Alleged Collusion with Gun Control Groups

In September 2023, President Joe Biden took a step to institutionalize the anti-gun advocacy complex within the executive branch of the federal government by creating the “White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.” Biden put Harris in charge of this gun control effort. The White House website for the outfit states, “The Office of Gun Violence Prevention is overseen by Vice President Harris.”

On March 19, the city of Chicago filed suit against handgun manufacturer Glock. Seeking to shift responsibility for the city’s woeful governance, Chicago’s lawsuit blamed the popular firearm manufacturer for the third-party criminal misuse of its products. Specifically, Chicago tried to hold Glock liable for the fact that criminals use illegal devices (auto sears or so-called “Glock switches”) to illegally modify Glock pistols into illegal machine guns. The suit sought to force Glock to alter the design of its celebrated pistols and asked the court to enjoin the sale of Glock pistols to Chicago residents.

Longstanding U.S. tort principles, and the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act make clear that firearm manufacturers are not to be held liable for the criminal misuse of their products. Simply put: people are responsible for their own behavior, not the behavior of others. Therefore, if a violent criminal acquires and misuses a firearm to commit a crime, it is the criminal who is liable for the conduct, not the company that produced the firearm. Just like how General Motors isn’t responsible for the actions of drunk drivers.

In June, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability announced that it was examining “potential collusion” between the Biden-Harris Administration, the City of Chicago and “anti-Second Amendment plaintiffs” in the Glock lawsuit.

According to a June 14 press release, “the Oversight Committee has learned that the White House met privately with representatives from Glock, during which the Administration requested Glock change their pistol design,” followed by Everytown for Gun Safety President John Feinblatt tweeting about the meeting. “Because this was a private meeting between Glock and the White House, Mr. Feinblatt seemed to have inside access to the White House meeting which raises questions about collusion with [the White House Office on Gun Violence Prevention]. And rather than aggressively prosecuting criminals, government agencies are colluding with anti-gun interest groups to cripple a manufacturer who sells a legal product in a highly regulated sales market.” This raised questions about government transparency, possible “conflicts of interest by White House staff operating at the behest of former or future employers, and other issues of trust in government.”

Describing the Glock lawsuit as a “misguided action [that] ignores the responsibility of Federal law enforcement agencies to aggressively prosecute criminals who violate Federal statutes and local prosecutors who have taken a soft on crime approach to prosecutions,” Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote to ATF director Steven Dettelbach on June 14, requesting his assistance with the investigation by producing, among other things, “[a]ll documents and communications between or among the ATF, the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention , Everytown for Gun Safety, Everytown Law, any State Attorneys General, officials of the City of Chicago, Corporation Counsel of the City of Chicago, City of Chicago Department of Law, Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrision, LLP, which include the terms ‘Glock’, ‘auto sear(s)’, ‘Glock switches’, ‘machinegun conversion device’ (‘MCD’) or ‘Chicago litigation’…”

A similar letter was sent on June 14 to Stefanie Feldman, director of the White House Office on Gun Violence Prevention, asking for all documents and communications between her office, the ATF, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Everytown Law related to the Glock litigation or auto sears in general, as well as all documents and communications between Rob Wilcox, the deputy director of the White House Office for Gun Violence Prevention, and John Feinblatt (Wilcox previously “served as the Senior Director of Federal Government Affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety,” and prior to that, “worked at Brady”).

On July 19, Chairman Comer fired off a follow-up letter to Ms. Feldman, indicating that the response received to the June 14 letter “was unaccompanied by any of the responsive documents I requested in my initial letter. Efforts by my staff to obtain compliance with the document request from the White House have gone unanswered.”

“The White House should spend more time complying with Committee requests, and less time obstructing congressional investigations into potential misconduct and misuse of office by White House officials,” Chairman Comer wrote back, reiterating the request for the documents and warning that the Committee “will use all tools at its disposal, including use of the compulsory process, to obtain the information the Committee seeks.”

On October 3, Chairman Comer was forced to use the compulsory process. In a press release, the Committee announced, “House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is today issuing subpoenas to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which is overseen by Vice President Harris.”

The cover letter for the subpoena to the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention stated,

Plaintiff’s counsel has publicly shared details of a private meeting that your office had with Glock, Inc., the defendant in the lawsuit, which raises serious concerns about whether you or your staff abused the authority of your office and committed ethical violations by colluding with outside parties to initiate a lawsuit against a politically disfavored private entity.

As gun industry trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation observed in July:

rather than hold accountable the criminals who illegally possess and use auto sears, all indications are that The White House teamed with the City of Chicago who retained Everytown for Gun Safety to file the frivolous lawsuit against GLOCK, Inc. Now that they’re being called out for the potential collusion, the only answers White House officials will provide are temper tantrums over the fact that the House Oversight Committee is doing actual oversight of Executive Branch abuses of courts to bring lawfare against a member of the firearm industry.

Harris can claim all she wants that she values owning a handgun for her own self-defense, but her decades-long political record shows that her actions have been aimed at trying to stop ordinary Americans from exercising their Second Amendment right to own the same handgun.

—Courtesy NRA-ILA