Gun management is likely one of the most polarizing points in American politics, and it has been a subject of competition within the 2024 presidential election. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have been at odds over weapons — Trump has advised voters Harris “needs to confiscate your weapons,” some extent Harris denies. She needs to see stronger gun management legal guidelines on the books but in addition says she’s a gun proprietor. Listed below are Trump’s and Harris’ stances and coverage plans to deal with gun violence in America.
Kamala Harris’ stance on weapons
- Harris says she favors the Second Modification and stated within the Sept. 10 debate with Trump that she owns a gun, a revelation she initially made when she ran for president in In 2019. “I personal a gun for most likely the rationale lots of people do — for private security,” she stated on the time. “I used to be a profession prosecutor.” She not too long ago advised 60 Minutes she owns a Glock and has fired it at a capturing vary.
- Harris oversees the White Home Workplace of Gun Violence and Prevention, which was created by the Biden administration in 2023 with a watch towards discovering methods round congressional inaction on stronger gun management legal guidelines.
- The Biden administration in 2022 enacted the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act within the wake of the mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York. It represents essentially the most vital replace to gun security regulation in virtually three many years, augmenting background checks for gun consumers beneath 21, offering billions for psychological well being companies and shutting the so-called “boyfriend loophole” to stop convicted home abusers from buying a firearm for 5 years. It additionally clarified the definition of gun sellers. The regulation faces challenges from 26 GOP-led states which can be suing to dam it.
- Harris’ operating mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, additionally owns a gun and is an avid hunter. He even held an “A” score from the NRA at one time, however his grade fell to an “F” in 2018, when he backed stricter gun legal guidelines in Minnesota following the Parkland, Florida, faculty capturing. On the marketing campaign path in October 2024, Walz went searching along with his personal Beretta in an attraction to gun homeowners.
Kamala Harris’ coverage plans on weapons
- Harris oversees the White Home Workplace of Gun Violence and Prevention, which was created by the Biden administration in 2023 as a way to discover a method round congressional inaction on stronger gun management legal guidelines.
- Her marketing campaign web site says if Harris is elected, she would “ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require common background checks, and assist crimson flag legal guidelines that preserve weapons out of the palms of harmful individuals.”
- Although she says she is a Second Modification advocate, Harris additionally favors stronger gun management measures. In a speech on Sept. 12, Harris promised to “move an assault weapons ban, common background checks and crimson flag legal guidelines.”
- Whereas operating for president in 2019, Harris vowed to take govt motion on weapons, saying in April 2019 that she would implement “near-universal” background checks, shut loopholes to stop these convicted of home violence from acquiring firearms and revoke licenses from gun producers and sellers who break the regulation. In Oct. 2019 she stated she supported a compulsory gun buyback program, however on the Sept. 10 debate, she advised Trump, “We’re not taking anyone’s weapons away, so cease with the continual mendacity about these items.”
Donald Trump’s stance on weapons
- Trump “believes that each American has a God-given proper to guard themselves and their household and has confirmed via his actions that he’ll defend law-abiding gun homeowners,” his marketing campaign stated.
- The NRA endorsed Trump in Could at its annual conference, and he has addressed the group a number of instances, together with in 2022, shortly after the Uvalde mass capturing.
- Shortly after taking workplace in 2017, Trump signed a invoice that rolled again an Obama-era regulation that made it tougher for individuals with psychological sicknesses to buy a gun.
- Throughout a White Home listening session with college students and households affected by the 2018 Parkland mass capturing, Trump prompt bonuses for academics who’re “adept at weapons” and provided assist for offering hid carry permits for academics or retired navy personnel on campus.
- After the Las Vegas mass capturing in Oct. 2017, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms beneath the Trump administration banned bump shares, gadgets that vastly improve the speed of fireside of semi-automatic weapons. The ban was later struck down by the Supreme Courtroom.
Donald Trump’s coverage plans for weapons
- Trump’s marketing campaign stated in an announcement that he would “terminate each single one of many Harris-Biden’s assaults on law-abiding gun homeowners his first week in workplace and arise for our constitutionally enshrined proper to bear arms.”
- He has not spoken on the marketing campaign path about particular coverage proposals on weapons. On the NRA’s Nice American Out of doors Present in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in February, Trump promised that “nobody will lay a finger in your firearms” if he wins the election.
- Trump stated in the identical speech he “did nothing” to limit weapons whereas he was within the White Home, though his administration enacted the 2017 bump inventory ban. After the 2018 mass capturing in Parkland, Florida, he referred to as on Congress to move bipartisan laws to strengthen and enhance the nationwide instantaneous legal background examine system. And after the 2019 mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, Trump reiterated assist for “crimson flag” legal guidelines and stronger background checks, though many Second Modification activists fought the measure, and it was in the end deserted later that yr.