Kamala Harris backed a total ban on handguns early in her career, which complicates her campaign’s message on guns and maybe even the trajectory of the race.

On Tuesday, we reported that Harris supported Proposition H in 2005 as San Francisco’s District Attorney. The measure would have barred nearly all city residents from selling, buying, or possessing pistols had it not been struck down by multiple California courts. Her support for it opens up a slew of yet-to-be-answered questions for the candidate and the presidential race.

Before this week, Harris and Donald Trump alike had settled into what seemed to be their final gun messaging headed into November. Trump has downplayed the issue while chiding gun owners for not voting in big enough numbers and attacking Harris for wanting to take people’s guns. Harris has responded by pointing to her own gun ownership as evidence she won’t take anyone’s guns and just wants to ban the sale of assault weapons, require universal background checks, and implement “red flag” laws.

“She has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun,” Trump said during this month’s debate.

“This business about taking everyone’s guns away; Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” Harris responded a few minutes later. “We’re not taking anyone’s guns away.”

While many, including Oprah, were surprised to hear Harris say she owned a gun during the debate, she had talked about it once before.

“I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do – for personal safety,” she said during an April 2019 event. “I was a career prosecutor.”

A Harris aide told CNN at the time that Harris’s gun was a pistol, and she’d had it for years at that point.

So, if that’s the case, when did she buy her pistol? Did she own it when she backed Proposition H?

If she did own a handgun in 2005, did she plan to turn it in? Or did she believe she’d be covered by the active-duty law enforcement exception? If she bought her gun later, why did she buy a handgun after seeking to ban them? Why not buy a shotgun or rifle instead?

Also, when did she change her mind about taking away people’s handguns? Why did she change her mind?

And, most importantly for the 2024 race, will any of this matter?

Handgun bans were already unpopular in 2005, which is likely why other prominent gun-control advocates shied away from Proposition H. The Supreme Court officially ruled Washington, DC’s handgun ban unconstitutional just three years later, shortly after a California appeals court rejected the San Francisco ban. Gallup’s polling shows they have become increasingly unpopular since then, with just 27 percent of Americans backing one in 2023.

In 2016, I reported on audio from a Hillary Clinton fundraiser where she said the Supreme Court was wrong in striking down DC’s ban. That story broke at a similar time in that race.

The NRA ended up pouring tens of millions of dollars into ads attacking Clinton for those comments. She lost, and in a race as close as 2016 was, it’s difficult to conclude that the story didn’t have a significant impact on the outcome–especially in more pro-gun states like Pennsylvania and Arizona.

2024 is shaping up to be yet another close race. Donald Trump has many vulnerabilities like he did back then, including that he’s the first candidate prohibited from owning guns to win a major party nomination, but he has a real chance of winning the presidency like he did back then. This story presents nearly the same problem for Harris, perhaps even a bigger one, than the 2016 story did for Clinton.

So, it could be one of those major stories that shake up the race.

But there are also reasons to think it won’t be. For one, Harris has already faced controversy over her past support for confiscating some guns and is actively trying to assuage concerns over that. Whether she’s doing enough by just stating she won’t take people’s guns is a very open question, but she’s still doing more than Clinton ever did to respond.

Voters have also consistently ranked guns as a mid-to-bottom-tier issue in this race. Despite the stark contrast in approaches by the candidates and a recently high-profile school shooting, polls show voters have kept their attention on other issues like the economy or defending democracy.

Additionally, the NRA is in no shape to flood the airwaves with ads highlighting her support for Proposition H. It’ll be a harder lift than the Clinton ads anyway since video of her commenting on the ban has yet to surface. But the NRA just doesn’t have anywhere near the funds to spend on ads against Harris as it did against Clinton.

But this story doesn’t need to change a million minds to swing the election. The margins in each swing are unlikely to add up to anywhere near that. So, the bar is significantly lower than that. Whether Harris ignoring the story can keep it out of those voters’ minds or Trump and the NRA can get them to focus on it could make the difference.