Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris called for a ban on the most popular rifle in America during the final day of the party’s convention.
On Thursday, the Democratic National Convention closed out festivities with a block dedicated to the party’s gun priorities. A series of gun-control advocates spoke on the main stage in the lead-up to Harris’s acceptance speech. Then, Harris promised action on guns in her remarks.
“In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake,” Harris said during her acceptance speech. “The freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities, and places of worship.”
The plan for how to ensure people are safe from gun violence was laid out earlier in the evening during a video introducing the DNC’s “freedom from gun violence” segment.
“We’ll finally pass Red Flag laws, universal background checks, and an assault weapons ban,” Harris said in the video. “The power is with the people.”
While all three of those policies have been hotly contested over the past thirty years, the so-called assault weapons ban has long been the most controversial. Such bans primarily target AR-15 rifles, but the definition of “assault weapon” often varies significantly, even from state to state, and tends to sweep up far more than just those rifles. Harris has supported a ban and even called for a mandatory buyback of the tens of millions already owned by Americans during her unsuccessful bid for president in 2020.
Her 2024 campaign has since claimed she no longer plans to push for a buyback if elected this time around. However, her focus on an AR-15 ban, which continues President Joe Biden’s approach to the issue, could sway voters. It is a significant sticking point on gun policy between her and opponent Donald Trump, which may push undecided voters to one side or the other.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry trade group, estimated there were over 24.4 million AR-15s and similar rifles in civilian circulation in 2022. It is widely believed to be the most popular rifle in the country, especially since the federal assault weapons ban of 1994 expired in 2004.
Polling on assault weapons bans in recent years shows Americans have mixed views on the proposal. In February 2023, a Quinnipiac University poll found more people opposed the idea than supported it. An ABC News/Washington Post poll from the same month found a majority of Americans opposed a ban. However, a Fox News poll from that April found 61 percent of Americans supported a ban.
Harris’s highlighting of gun-control policies contrasts with her opponent’s approach. Donald Trump did not mention guns at all in his acceptance speech despite that speech lasting over an hour and a half. And that was after the Republican Party dropped all of the gun-policy promises from its platform, something the Democrats didn’t do.
The relative silence from Trump and the Republicans comes despite polling showing Americans are both interested in gun policy and torn on who would be better for the country.
The most recent CBS News/YouGov poll found 88 percent of likely voters rated guns as a factor in their vote, with 58 percent saying they would be a “major factor.” More Democrats and liberals rated the issue as important to their vote than Republicans and conservatives in that poll. However, the most recent Fox News poll put Donald Trump slightly ahead of Harris on who registered voters trusted more to handle gun policy.
