PHILADELPHIA — As Kamala Harris tried to refute Donald Trump’s accusation that she wants to take away owners’ guns, the vice president cited the point that she is a gun owner, too.
“This business about taking everyone's guns away - Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away, so stop with the continuous lying about this stuff," Harris said during Tuesday night's debate between the two presidential candidates.
While the statement may have surprised some watching the debate, Harris first revealed she was a gun owner in 2019 while she was running for president in the Democratic primary: “I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety,” Harris told reporters in Iowa. “I was a career prosecutor.”
A Harris campaign aide said at the time that the then-U.S. senator owned a handgun, which was purchased years prior, and is kept locked up.
Trump also owns guns, including three pistols registered under a concealed carry license in New York. According to the New York Times, the NYPD moved to revoke Trump's license to carry a concealed weapon after the conviction in his New York criminal case. The outlet reported in June that two of the pistols had been turned over to the NYPD's License Division after the former president was charged in April 2023 and the third had been legally transferred to Florida.
Since becoming vice president, Harris has pulled back from her support for mandatory gun buy-back programs, which helped her stand out in a crowded 2019 Democratic primary. Such policies would force millions of gun owners to sell their AR-15s and similar firearms to the government, a proposal that found little support among other Democrats or gun safety advocates.
Harris now advocates for more moderate and politically popular proposals, including universal background checks on gun sales and “red flag” laws that generally allow family members or law enforcement officers to seek a court order restricting gun access to those posing an immediate risk to themselves or public safety.