Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris didn’t address her past support for a total ban on handguns in San Francisco during Thursday’s gun event at the White House.
Harris, who backed 2005’s Proposition H banning the sale and possession of pistols for nearly all city residents, has since said she will not take Americans’ guns away if elected president. However, she has yet to explain why she supported the San Francisco’s ban when she was District Attorney or why she changed her mind. Earlier in the day, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ducked the same questions during her daily press briefing. Without directly addressing the handgun confiscation measure, Harris said during Thursday’s event she supports the Second Amendment and doesn’t want to take people’s firearms–reiterating her 2024 gun policy agenda.
“It is a false choice to suggest you are either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away,” Harris said. “I am in favor of the Second Amendment, and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban and pass universal background checks, safe storage laws, and red flag laws.”
Harris’s refusal to address her earlier support for a total ban on handguns could harm her chances of winning what polling indicates will be a very close race. The news that she previously supported a sweeping pistol confiscation measure threatens to undermine her recent efforts to assuage voter concerns about her record on guns. Leaving that news unaddressed might draw less attention to her early-career track record on guns, or it could drive undecided voters who are concerned about gun policy away.
Harris was one of only a few city officials to back the handgun ban in 2005. She broke with other prominent gun-control advocates in supporting the measure, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
“Although Mayor Gavin Newsom has not taken a position, several of the city’s most liberal leaders are supporting the far-reaching ban — including District Attorney Kamala Harris and four supervisors who are listed as sponsors,” Mary Anne Ostrom reported at the time–adding that Dianne Feinstein didn’t support the measure despite imposing her own failed handgun ban when she was mayor. “Feinstein, now a U.S. senator, is not taking a position on Proposition H, because she feels the state’s top court has already ruled, a spokesman said.”
Chuck Michele, a lawyer who represented the National Rifle Association (NRA) and California Pistol and Rifle Association (CRPA) in the case successfully challenging Proposition H, said he also recalls Harris backing the ban.
“They tried to draw a line that distinguished it from the other case, and then they had it passed,” Michel told The Reload on Tuesday. “Harris supported that, and that was a complete total civilian handgun ban. It passed. Then CRPA and NRA sued again, and we knocked it out again.”
The Harris Campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment on her support for the handgun ban. However, she has insisted she will not confiscate anyone’s guns since she took over the top of the Democratic ticket in July. Her campaign first walked back her 2019 support for a mandatory buyback of “assault weapons.”
“Correct, the VP will not push for a mandatory buy back as president,” Lauren Hitt, a Harris spokesperson, told The Reload in July. “She has expressed support for red flag laws, universal background checks and an assault weapons ban.”
Then, at her debate with Donald Trump earlier this month, Harris said herself she did not plan to take people’s firearms. She also touted her ownership of a handgun as proof of her intentions.
“She has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun,” Trump said.
“This business about taking everyone’s guns away; Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anyone’s guns away,” Harris responded a few minutes later. “So, stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.”
She has since repeated that commitment numerous times, including during an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists last week.
“I am a gun owner, and Tim Walzs is a gun owner, and we’re not trying to take anybody’s guns away from them, but we do need an assault weapons ban,” Harris told the group.
She was asked specifically what she planned to do on handguns during that interview. She did not mention her previous support for the San Francisco ban on pistol possession. Instead, she advocated for a universal background check proposal and funding community violence intervention programs.
“I myself protested at a gun show probably 10, 15 years ago about the gun show loophole and why we need to close that,” Harris said. “Because what ends up happening is that gun shows at flea markets, gun dealers are not, under existing law in the past, required to register their sales. And so you are exactly right that a lot of homicides, for example, a good number of them, I don’t have the statistic in the front of my mind, are committed with illegally purchased guns, and that’s why we need to address each entry point in the issue, including universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole.”
Thursday’s White House event was centered on President Biden signing new executive orders on gun policy. While the administration has issued a number of aggressive actions that ban the sale or possession of certain firearms accessories or precursor parts, including a “ghost gun” kit ban the Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge to next month, the new actions are more modest. They create task forces to study things like illegal machinegun conversion tools and 3D-printed firearms, as well as best practices for active shooter drills at schools.
