WASHINGTON – Sen. Kamala Harris revealed Thursday that she’s a gun owner – but said she still wants stricter gun laws.
“I am a gun owner. And I own a gun for probably the reason that a lot of people do, for personal safety,” the California Democrat told a group of reporters in Iowa. “I was a former prosecutor.”
The 2020 presidential hopeful said she believes that voters have been offered a “false choice” on the issue of guns.
“For too long and still today we are being offered a false choice which suggests you’re either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s gun away,” Harris said. She attributed the problem to a “lack of courage” from leaders.
Harris called gun violence a “clear problem in our country” and pushed for “smart gun safety laws — which include universal background checks and a renewal of the assault weapons ban. Period,” she said.
During a January town hall on CNN, Harris shamed those in Congress for not acting after the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary shooting, in which 20 6- and 7-year-old children were killed.
“Here’s what I think. I think that somebody should have required – and this is going to sound very harsh – I think somebody should have required all those members of Congress to go in a room, in a locked room, no press, no one, nobody else, and look at the autopsy photographs of those babies,” Harris said back then. “And then you can vote your conscience. This has become a political issue.”