President Joe Biden (D) and Vice President Kamala Harris (D) are seeking a second term, despite abysmal approval ratings. With that in mind, it’s curious that Biden announced that Harris would be his “leading voice” in addressing what he calls “gun violence.”
It’s not that Biden and Harris don’t agree on what they want to do with our freedom. Harris has not only expressed a desire to ban common semi-automatic firearms that gun-ban advocates call “assault weapons,” but she has also spoken in favor of confiscating those firearms from the millions of Americans who legally own and use them.
Indeed, at a presidential campaign event in 2019, then-candidate Harris said that confiscation of commonly owned semi-automatic firearms like the AR-15 was “a good idea.” When promoting a forced “buyback” program (of course, the government can’t “buy back” something it never owned), Harris stated, “We have to work out the details—there are a lot of details—but … . We have to take those guns off the streets.”
Also, on June 2 of this year, as her first order of business representing the gun-ban aspect of Biden’s 2024 campaign, Harris gave a speech at an event in Springfield, Ill. In the speech, Harris said that “on the subject of gun-safety laws, it is a false choice—it is a false choice to suggest that we have to choose between either supporting the Second Amendment or passing reasonable gun-safety laws. We can do both. We can do both.”
Of course, those “gun-safety” laws she touched on during the speech—things she often calls “common-sense gun safety” laws—included gun bans, federal “red-flag” laws and “universal” background checks, all of which run afoul of the U.S. Constitution.
The thing is, this is a curious choice for a spokesperson from the White House on this topic, because all Harris can do is laugh nervously and spout dishonest talking points. If Biden really wanted to sell his bad policies on our Second Amendment rights, wouldn’t he choose a serious person who is capable of articulating the nuances of his policy positions, such as they are?
It would take a skilled orator and practitioner of rhetoric to have a chance to win debates predicated on the dishonest positions the Biden administration begins from.
While Harris and Biden like to talk about “common-sense gun-safety” legislation, it’s no secret that what they both want is to ban firearms. Biden has spoken repeatedly about banning commonly owned and legally used semi-automatic rifles, and has repeatedly expressed support for banning popular 9 mm pistols used by millions of Americans for self-defense, sport shooting and competition.
“The idea you need a weapon that can have the ability to fire 20, 30, 40, 50, 120 shots from that weapon, whether it’s a 9-millimeter pistol or whether it’s a rifle, is ridiculous. I’m continuing to push to eliminate the sale of those things,” said Biden at a July 21, 2021, presidential “town hall” appearance.
He has repeated his desire to ban what is arguably the most popular handgun caliber in America on other occasions.
Meanwhile, both Biden and Harris have repeatedly called for the repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), as they really do want to allow a flood of frivolous lawsuits to submerge America’s gun makers and dealers.
In 2008, Harris joined an amicus brief filed in the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) that argued that the Second Amendment does not protect our individual right to keep and bear arms, so, yes, like Biden she even wants to take away the basis of our rights.
If there’s one positive thing about Harris being Biden’s “leading voice” in his anti-gun efforts heading into the 2024 campaign, it’s that as poor of job as she has done at most aspects of her job as vice president, it’s likely she’ll do an equally bad job pushing more unconstitutional restrictions on gun ownership leading up to election day.
