As San Francisco’s district legal professional, Kamala Harris advised authorized gun house owners in her group that authorities may “stroll into” their houses to examine whether or not they had been storing their firearms correctly underneath a brand new regulation she helped draft.
“We’ll require accountable behaviors amongst everyone in the neighborhood, and simply since you legally possess a gun within the sanctity of your locked residence does not imply that we’re not going to stroll into that residence and test to see in case you’re being accountable and secure in the way in which you conduct your affairs,” Harris advised a bunch of reporters in Could 2007.
The remarks got here throughout a press conference introducing laws that Harris helped draft, which sought to impose penalties for gun house owners who fail to retailer their firearms correctly at residence.
The invoice, which on the time had simply been launched to town’s board of supervisors, was finally signed into law a few months later by then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. It was bundled with different gun management provisions, together with a brand new requirement for authorized gun distributors to submit a listing to the chief of police each six months, and a ban on possessing weapons – even legally – in public housing.
“San Francisco now has the strictest anti-gun legal guidelines within the county,” Newsom mentioned when he signed the brand new legal guidelines.
HARRIS SURPRISES SOCIAL MEDIA BY SAYING SHE’S A GUN OWNER
A employee units up a show of handguns on the ground of the exhibition corridor forward of the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation annual assembly on the Indiana Conference Heart in Indianapolis on Thursday, April 25, 2019. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg through Getty Photographs)
Through the Could 2007 press convention discussing the safe-storage invoice, Harris mentioned the brand new measure was about legislating “our values” in an try and “encourage sure sorts of habits.”
“After we create legal guidelines, it is not solely about creating a chance, if you’ll, to prosecute somebody for committing against the law, however extra importantly, once we legislate our values, it is about attempting to encourage sure forms of habits,” she mentioned on the time.
Harris has confronted criticism for statements she has made about her “values” heading into November. She advised CNN final month they “haven’t modified,” whereas concurrently switching on long-held insurance policies on nearly each entrance. Since changing into the Democratic nominee for president, Harris has tried to color a extra average image of herself in an try and distance herself from President Biden and enchantment to a wider swath of voters.
“As she mentioned final night time in her interview, her values haven’t modified. She mentioned that time and again,” Lora Ries, a border security professional on the Heritage Basis, advised Fox Information Digital after the CNN interview. “She is telling her base, ‘Look, don’t fret about what the marketing campaign is saying proper now. We simply should say that to try to get elected. However my values haven’t modified.'”
In the meantime, progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Harris was dropping far-left policies she beforehand held “so as to win the election.”
“Her views usually are not mine, however I do contemplate her a progressive,” he advised NBC’s “Meet The Press” earlier this month.
Vice President Kamala Harris raised eyebrows when telling CNN’s Dana Bash that her “values have not modified” after making full reversals on far-left positions she held in 2019. (Screenshot/CNN)
Throughout final week’s presidential debate, Harris was requested about her shifting place on necessary gun buybacks by ABC Information moderator Linsey Davis, however she didn’t instantly reply to the query till former President Donald Trump saved probing her about having “a plan to confiscate everyone’s gun.” Harris supported necessary gun buybacks whereas operating for president in 2019, saying they had been “a good idea.”
“This enterprise about taking everybody’s weapons away. Tim Walz and I are each gun house owners. We’re not taking anyone’s weapons away. So cease with the continual mendacity about these things,” Harris mentioned in response to Trump’s criticisms.
James Singer, a Harris marketing campaign spokesperson, advised Fox Information Digital {that a} potential Harris administration would “uphold and defend the regulation and rights of People, together with the Second Amendment.”
“The regulation in query, requiring wise gun storage in houses, was upheld by Republican appointed judges within the ninth circuit and declined to be reviewed by the Supreme Courtroom,” he added. “As Vice President Harris mentioned on the controversy stage, she is a gun proprietor who helps commonsense security legal guidelines that Donald Trump opposes.”
SUPREME COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF NRA IN KEY FIRST AMENDMENT CASE
Semi-automatic firearms are displayed on the market on a shelf on the McBride Weapons Inc. retailer on Aug. 25, 2023 in Austin, Texas. ( Brandon Bell/Getty Photographs)
Harris has an extended historical past of clashing with the National Rifle Association (NRA), thought of by many because the nation’s strongest gun rights lobbying group. In 2009, the NRA challenged the San Francisco regulation prohibiting weapons from public housing and gained. Nonetheless, the Supreme Courtroom, earlier than its latest shakeup underneath Trump, refused to listen to an enchantment from the NRA and different gun rights advocates after the ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals rejected their pleas to chill out San Francisco’s secure storage regulation.
“Legislation-abiding residents should hold their handguns inoperable or inaccessible exactly when they’re wanted most for self-defense — in the midst of the night time, whereas the residents are asleep and decidedly not carrying,” attorneys for the NRA and different gun rights advocates mentioned on the time.
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In the meantime, a ruling written by one of many ninth circuit judges decided the regulation “doesn’t considerably forestall law-abiding residents from utilizing firearms to defend themselves within the residence.” The choose, appointed throughout the George W. Bush administration, added that San Francisco had demonstrated the regulation “serves a major authorities curiosity by decreasing the variety of gun-related accidents and deaths from having an unlocked handgun within the residence.”
