In talking about ‘freedom,’ Harris hopes she has a winning message on guns
WASHINGTON – When President Bill Clinton asked House Democrats to pass an assault weapons ban in 1994, their leaders begged him to back off, fearing the vote would cost them their seats. They were right. Democrats lost the House for the first time in 40 years, blamed the assault weapons ban and let it expire. They have struggled ever since to figure out a winning gun safety message.
Now comes Vice President Kamala Harris, who is talking about guns in a new way for a Democrat - by co-opting the language of Republicans.
She has promised Americans "the freedom to be safe from gun violence," including in her first campaign ad, and told Oprah Winfrey that she owned a gun and that if someone breaks into her home, "they're getting shot." In doing so, Harris has upended Democratic stereotypes and reframed the conversation around guns - even as she vows to reinstate the lapsed ban, a long-sought goal of many in the party.
"It is a false choice to suggest you are either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone's guns away," Harris declared last month at a White House ceremony in which President Joe Biden signed two executive orders related to gun safety. "I am in favor of the Second Amendment, and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban."
Advocates of gun safety legislation say the vice president has leaned into the issue like few presidential candidates before her. Democrats hope her message will appeal to a constituency that is critical to winning the election: moderate, undecided voters in swing states - especially suburban women, who are deeply concerned about school shootings.
"It won't get the right-wing male Trump voter," who makes voting decisions based on the endorsements of the National Rifle Association, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. "But I think the freedom narrative is going to bring over a lot of people like the Michigan hunter - and his wife may hunt, too - who doesn't believe you need an AR-15 to hunt a deer."
That narrative fits into the campaign's broader theme of freedom, which Harris articulated during her speech at the Democratic National Convention in August.
"In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake," she said then, ticking off examples that included "the freedom to love who you love"; "to breathe clean air and drink clean water"; and "the freedom to vote." At the top of the list was the "freedom to live safe from gun violence."
The politics of gun safety - which Democrats long ago abandoned calling "gun control" - have shifted dramatically since pro-gun Democrats got swept out of office in the midterm elections of 1994.
"Thirty years ago, I could not get Democrats in the same room with me," said Joshua Horwitz, a professor in gun violence prevention and advocacy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. When Democrats lost the House in 1994, he said, they "got scared, and then they didn't use one of their most potent issues for years."
That began to change after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Democrats tried to revive the assault weapons ban as part of gun safety legislation, which collapsed on Capitol Hill. Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, whose son was killed by a firearm, and other Democrats won elections on a gun violence message, even in red states.
In 2022, Congress passed the first gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years, which Biden - a sponsor of the original 1994 assault weapons ban - signed into law. He followed by creating the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which Harris leads.
The statistics - and the experiences of Americans - are making the case for Harris. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 132 Americans die each day from firearm injuries. The Gun Violence Archive, which tracks gun fatalities, says there have been more than 400 mass shootings - defined as a shooting in which four or more people are injured, not including the shooter - this year alone.
That is making it harder for Republicans like former President Donald Trump to run on a gun rights message, said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist.
"That doesn't mean that they won't, or that people don't care about gun rights, because they do," Ayres said. "But arguing that everybody needs an AR-15 for their personal protection is a stretch."
The NRA is a shell of its former self, hobbled by allegations of fraud and the resignation of its longtime executive director, Wayne LaPierre, amid revelations that he spent vast sums on finely tailored suits and lavish travel. So Harris may simply be in the right place at the right time to talk about tighter gun laws.
Richard Feldman, a former NRA lobbyist who has been critical of the organization, said Harris was wise to spotlight her gun ownership, given that 140 million Americans own firearms. Gun ownership surged during the coronavirus pandemic among African Americans and particularly Black women - a key constituency for Harris.
But Feldman said the vice president would turn off many gun owners by embracing the assault weapons ban. Rather than talking about banning specific weapons, he said, Democrats should focus on "the people who misuse them." Still, advocates for gun safety legislation say the vice president has leaned into the issue like few presidential candidates before her. Giffords, an advocacy group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords after she was grievously wounded by a gunman, has been using "freedom" language after polling found the message was persuasive to about 35% of Republicans, said Emma Brown, the group's director.
Harris, she said, "turbocharged it."
In some ways, Harris is simply reclaiming language that Democrats used long ago. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of the four freedoms: "the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear."
In talking openly about being a gun owner, Harris, a former prosecutor, is challenging not only the stereotype for Democrats, but also for female candidates. The message also dovetails with that of her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a hunter who once received an "A" rating from the NRA and now gets an "F" from the group.
"Tim Walz and I are both gun owners," Harris said during the recent presidential debate. "We're not taking anybody's guns away." It was a retort to Trump, who said the vice president had "a plan to confiscate everybody's gun."
But there is a risk to Harris in talking so openly about owning a weapon: She might alienate voters, particularly on the left, who fear she is normalizing gun ownership in a nation where there are already more guns than people.
The campaign and the vice president's office have offered few details about Harris' weapon, other than to say it is the same weapon she spoke about in 2019 - a handgun, for personal protection, that is stored safely in a locked case at her home in San Francisco. Nor would the campaign or the vice president's office address an apparent contradiction: In 2005, as the district attorney in San Francisco, she backed a measure that would have banned handguns in the city.
Guns are deeply ingrained in American culture; roughly one-third of American adults own a gun, mostly for personal protection, according to the Pew Research Center. But Republicans are about twice as likely as Democrats to own guns. A Monmouth University Poll in 2023 found the public is divided on whether to ban military-style assault weapons. But about 6 in 10 U.S. adults favor stricter gun laws.
Some experts say that Harris is opening up much-needed conversations between the right and the left. Among them is Dr. Jonathan Metzl, a psychiatrist at Vanderbilt University whose recent book, "What We've Become" argues that until the left understands gun culture and speaks the language of gun owners, there can be no progress in reducing gun violence.
"There are a lot of gun owners who want gun safety because they think it makes for a safer gun culture," Metzl said, adding, "I hope, long term, this is the beginning of a shift for Democrats in terms of really taking seriously the issue of gun ownership, not just gun fatalities."
This story was originally published October 6, 2024, 3:35 PM.
