Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have no problem bringing up their desire to ban so-called assault weapons when they’re on the stump, but the pair studiously avoided any substantive conversation about gun control in their joint interview with CNN on Thursday. CNN anchor Dana Bash avoided the topic as well, even as she brought up Walz’s falsehood about “carrying weapons of war in war”. Though Walz’s original comment was part of a screed about his support for an “assault weapons” ban during his first run for governor of Minnesota, Bash instead simply asked him if he “misspoke” about his miltary record.
BASH: You said that you carried weapons in war, but you have never deployed actually in a war zone. A campaign official said that you misspoke. Did you?
WALZ: Well, first of all, I’m incredibly proud. I’ve done 24 years of wearin’ uniform of this country. Equally proud of my service in a public school classroom, whether it’s Congress or — or the governor. My record speaks for itself, but I think people are coming to get to know me. I — I speak like they do. I speak candidly. I wear my emotions on my sleeves, and I speak especially passionately about — about our children being shot in schools and around — around guns. So I think people know me. They know who I am. They know where — where my heart is, and again, my record has been out there for over 40 years to — to speak for itself.
BASH: And the — the idea that you said that you were in war, did you misspeak, as the campaign has said?
WALZ: Yeah, I said — we were talking about in this case, this was after a school shooting, the ideas of carrying these weapons of war. And my wife the English teacher told me my grammar’s not always correct. But again, if it’s not this, it’s an attack on my children for showing love for me, or it’s an attack on my dog. I’m not gonna do that, and the one thing I’ll never do is I’ll never demean another member’s service in any way. I never have and I never will.
That would have been a natural opportunity for Bash to try to get some specifics from Harris and Walz about their gun ban plans, especially since earlier in the interview Bash had asked Harris about her “evolving” positions on a number of issues without bringing up her changing stance on a mandatory “buyback” of tens of millions of lawfully-owned firearms.
BASH: Generally speaking, how should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made — that you explained some of here — in your policy? Is it because you have more experience now and you’ve learned more about the information? Is it because you’re running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is gonna be your policy moving forward?
HARRIS: Dana, I think the — the — the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed. You mentioned the Green New Deal. I have always believed and I have worked on it, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.
We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act. We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension the globe around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as an example. That value has not changed. My value around what we need to do to secure our border, that value has not changed. I spent two terms as the attorney general of California prosecuting transnational criminal organizations, violations of American laws regarding the passage, illegal passage of guns, drugs, and human beings across our border. My values did not change.
So that is the reality of it, and four years of being vice president, I’ll tell you, one of the — the — the aspects to your point is traveling the country extensively. I mean, I’m here in Georgia, I think somebody told me 17 times since I’ve been vice president in Georgia alone. I believe it is important to build consensus, and it is important to — to — to find a common place of understanding of where we can actually solve problems.
After that word salad of a response, it’s easy to see why Harris’s campaign managers are so reluctant to have her sit down and answer questions extemporaneously.
Harris claims that, while her positions may be radically different than what they were just a few years ago, her values haven’t changed. What does that tell us about her gun control plans?
Well, as District Attorney Harris fought to shut down gun shows in San Francisco and cosigned an amicus brief supporting D.C.’s handgun ban. As California Attorney General she defended the state’s draconian gun control regime and helped to implement its discredited “microstamping” law. As California’s junior senator, she backed legislation banning “large capacity” magazines, pushed for the repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, and was a reliable vote in favor of other anti-Second Amendment measures.
During her brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, she said it was a “good idea” to demand gun owners turn over their modern sporting rifles to the government in exchange for an undetermined amount of cash. As Vice President, she’s headed up the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which has allowed the gun control lobby to work hand-in-hand with the Biden/Harris administration on gun control efforts. She claimed the Bruen decision “defies common sense and the U.S. Constitution”, despite the explicit protection for the right to bear arms in the text of the Second Amendment.
Throughout her political career, Kamala Harris has done nothing to show she values our right to keep and bear arms. Instead, she has a long history of trying to chill the exercise of that fundamental right. Harris seems to think there’s a binary choice between public safety and the Second Amendment, and she has evidenced deep contempt and outright hostility towards gun owners and our right to keep and bear arms. Those are the “values” she’s displayed when it comes to that fundamental right, and if she says those values haven’t changed, I believe her.
Still, it’s not just Harris’s history that we should be concerned about. Her future plans to attack the Second Amendment are also a critical issue, and after the sitdown with CNN it’s evident that neither Harris nor Walz want to delve into the specifics of their anti-2A agenda if they win in November.
