Tony Diver
US Editor
22 September 2024 1:23am
Kamala Harris was “joking” when she suggested she would shoot a home invader, one of her top advisers has said.
The vice president told Oprah Winfrey on Thursday: “If someone breaks into my house, they’re getting shot.”
After making the comment, Ms Harris laughed, adding that she “probably should not have said that” and that her “staff will deal with that later”.
Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Harris campaign adviser, has now walked back on the comment saying it was “a joke” and designed to “humanise” her to voters.
“It was a joke, and she knew that we would still be talking about it today, but I think it‘s important that people know that the vice president respects the right to bear arms, that she supports the Second Amendment, but she wants responsible gun ownership and she wants our communities to be safe,” Ms Bottoms told CNN on Friday.
Ms Harris is striking a delicate balance between her own support for gun controls and the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which gives citizens the right to bear arms.
“Here’s my point, Oprah,” Ms Harris said on Thursday. “I’m not trying to take everyone’s guns away.”
Ms Harris has previously said she is a gun owner, and mentioned it again during her debate with Donald Trump on September 10. A source told CNN she had bought a small pistol that would fit in a purse.
“I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do – for personal safety,” she told reporters on the campaign trail in Iowa in 2019. Tim Walz, her running mate, is also a gun owner.
Ms Harris has backed a ban on assault rifles, many of which have been used in mass shootings in the US, and described them as “weapons of war”.
She has also spoken in favour of so-called “red flag laws” that would enforce stricter background checks on gun purchases.
She said on Thursday that her support for the restrictions are “just common sense”.
Joe Biden, her running mate in 2020, has passed several restrictions on guns during his time in office, including a new rule that imposes stricter background checks on buyers under the age of 21.
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