Kamala Harris once backed mandatory assault weapons buybacks. Not anymore.

Amy Sherman
·8 min read
2
Various rifles are for sale at Gun Crafters on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Salem, Ore.
Various rifles are for sale at Gun Crafters on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Salem, Ore.

Donald Trump

Statement: Kamala Harris “supports mandatory gun confiscation.”

Former President Donald Trump told supporters in Georgia that Vice President Kamala Harris will take away their guns and leave them "totally defenseless in your house."

"She supports mandatory gun confiscation," Trump said Saturday at a campaign rally in Atlanta. He added sarcastically: "Would anybody mind if they came into your house and took away your gun? …  She's for taking away all of your guns."

In July, we saw similar statements about Harris’ gun record from the NRA, Gun Owners of America and Dave McCormick, a Pennsylvania Republican running for U.S. Senate.

The phrase "gun confiscation" is broad and could lead voters to think that Harris wants to confiscate all guns from law-abiding owners. That’s not what she has said.

Further, those rights are constitutionally protected by the Second Amendment. In the U.S. gun buybacks are programs organized by local police departments that voluntarily allow people to turn over their guns in exchange for something, such as a gift card.

While running in the presidential primary in 2019, the then-California senator said she supported a "mandatory gun buyback program" for assault weapons. It did not apply to all guns, and she no longer holds that position.

The Trump campaign did not respond to our request for comment.

Harris has supported gun buybacks and other measures

Harris addressed gun buybacks several times during the 2019 campaign.

During an October 2019 gun control forum in Las Vegas, Harris joined two primary rivals in supporting the mandatory buyback of assault weapons.

"We have to have a buyback program, and I support a mandatory gun buyback program," Harris said. "It’s got to be smart, we got to do it the right way. But there are 5 million (assault weapons) at least, some estimate as many as 10 million, and we’re going to have to have smart public policy that’s about taking those off the streets, but doing it the right way."

Assault weapons are not the majority of guns sold in the U.S. Handguns are the most popular. A 1994 federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, barred the "manufacture, transfer, and possession" of about 118 firearm models and all magazines holding over 10 rounds. Harris has supported renewing the ban throughout her career.

In November 2019, NBC News also reported that Harris then supported a "mandatory gun buyback." Harris told the interviewer that "there is no place" for assault weapons on the streets.

Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris

NBC News’ Harry Smith asked Harris, "So, say you’ve got a couple hundred thousand off the streets, I mean, isn’t that just a drop in the bucket?

Harris said: "Well, what we’ll do is have an incentive for people to turn them in and buy them back. But when we`re talking about weapons of war, I mean, it literally is this simple. Five million assault weapons on the streets of America, period."

The Trump campaign in an X post highlighted Harris’ response to a college student’s question in a September 2019 episode of "The Tonight Show."

One student asked Harris, "Do you believe in mandatory buy back of quote unquote ‘assault weapons’ and whether or not you do, how does that idea not go against fundamentally the Second Amendment?"

In its video clip of Harris, the Trump campaign included a couple of sentences of Harris’ remarks. We put the parts that the Trump campaign included in the video in bold:

Harris said: "I do believe that we need to do buybacks." Then she described assault weapons as "weapons of war." She vowed if elected to "ban on the importation of assault weapons" and said the U.S. will have to deal with the assault weapons that are already in the country.

"And, so, a buyback program is a good idea, now we need to do it the right way and part of that has to be buy back and give people their value the financial value of what they have and not just take things from people that have value without compensating them. We need to do it the right way," she said.

During an April 2019 CNN town hall, Harris referred to her time as state attorney general and said law enforcement was permitted to confiscate guns from people who were found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others.

"I have to stress, lawful gun ownership, that is one thing," Harris said. "We’re talking about something else, and we have to stop conflating and blending all these issues."

In April 2019, Harris told reporters in Iowa: "We are being offered a false choice. You’re either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away. It’s a false choice that is born out of a lack of courage from leaders who must recognize and agree that there are some practical solutions to what is a clear problem in our country."

We asked the Harris campaign whether she still supports mandatory assault weapons buybacks. She does not. A campaign spokesperson pointed to a comment the campaign gave to The New York Times that, like President Joe Biden, Harris wants to ban assault weapons but not require people to sell them to the federal government.

We found no statements by Harris during calling for mass gun confiscation during her vice presidency.

As vice president, Harris has urged states to pass red flag laws and supported federal gun safety legislation that included funding for mental health and school security resources. None of that is akin to gun confiscation.

PolitiFact's ruling

Trump said that Harris "supports mandatory gun confiscation."

While running in the 2019 presidential primary, Harris said, "I support a mandatory gun buyback program" for assault weapons. This would not cover all guns; handguns, for example, are the most popular.

Trump used the present tense when he said that Harris "supports mandatory gun confiscation." The Harris campaign told The New York Times that she supports banning assault weapons but not a requirement to sell them to the federal government. We could find no examples that she currently supports mandatory gun confiscation.

The claim contains an element of truth about her past position on assault weapons, but it leaves a misleading impression about her platform in 2024. We rate this statement Mostly False.

Our sources

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Kamala Harris no loner backs mandatory assault weapons buybacks