Harris haunted by views on gun buybacks in swing state Pennsylvania – Washington Examiner

Since taking the Democratic ticket in August, Harris has veered to the right on gun restrictions. He still supports a ban on the sale of assault weapons, but no longer says the weapons should be returned under a mandatory buyback program.

Harris’ decision is part of an attempt to moderate her image after she ran in the 2019 presidential campaign as an unabashed progressive. But Harris remains concerned about the stance as Republicans try to animate their base in the week before Election Day.

The Pennsylvania Republican Party has repeatedly sent letters warning that Harris wants to leave voters “disarmed and defenseless.” Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump’s surrogates say Democrats will dismantle the Constitution, including the Second Amendment, if given the chance.

This emphasis is natural for Donald Trump Jr., an avid hunter who raided Pennsylvania on Monday on behalf of his father.

He ended the day at a shooting range outside Allentown, where he told supporters that their children risked losing their gun rights if they didn’t bring friends to the polls.

“All these unalienable rights are up for debate when it comes to Democrats, and they tell us that every day,” Donald Trump Jr. said.

The warning is the latest example of Republicans using the culture wars to stoke Republican enthusiasm in Pennsylvania, a must-win state for Harris on Election Day.

In a much larger plant On transgender policy, the Trump campaign has spent tens of millions on ads from Pennsylvania to North Carolina highlighting Harris’ past support for gender reassignment surgery for prisoners.

Republicans aren’t devoting the same resources to the issue of gun rights, but it’s one of the tools surrogates are using to drive a cultural wedge between Harris and the Republicans she seeks to judge.

Donald Trump Jr. opened his shooting range event by mocking Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who he was obviously struggling load his shotgun earlier this month while pheasant hunting in Minnesota.

“Guys, I don’t know. I shoot a lot,” Donald Trump Jr. said. “It’s just not that hard.”

“Kamala worked at McDonald’s like Tim Walz knew how to load a shotgun,” he said of Harris’s insistence that she worked for the fast-food giant, although the company has no records from 1983 to back it up.

Harris was the first to support a mandatory buyout program for assault weapons in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary as she sought to stand out in a crowded field of candidates. Then, as now, she spoke of “false choice” between maintaining the Second Amendment and introducing gun restrictions.

Her signature campaign promise was to take executive action if Congress failed to pass universal background checks. In the case of weapons manufacturers, she promised to revoke the licenses of those who broke the law and, in some cases, hold them criminally liable.

Today, Harris sees her previous openness as a liability, trying to deflect Republican criticism that she is out of step with the country’s mainstream.

Harris has recently emphasized that she owns a Glock and cites Walz’s experience as an outdoorsman to soften her image. And while Harris hasn’t taken a conservative stance on the issue like she did on immigration, Harris has rhetorically tried to silence fears that as president she’ll decide to confiscate guns.

On Monday’s podcast, Harris even claimed that Trump, not her, wants this invalidate the Second Amendment.

“Listen, I support the Second Amendment. “I don’t think we should take away anyone’s guns,” she said. “I want to denounce the Constitution of the United States.”

At one point, Trump said constitutional election rules should be abolished because he alleged fraud in 2022.

Republicans are determined to continue challenging Harris’ past stances on gun rights, and three mailings on the topic have been sent to their downtown Philadelphia residence over the past month.

“Do you have a gun? Kamala Harris will take them away or arrest them,” said one leaflet reviewed by The. Washington Examiner. Another warned that “a vote for Kamala Harris is a vote against yourself.”

The news is unusual for Philadelphia, a blue stronghold that typically favors gun restrictions. The Pennsylvania Republican Federal Committee, which commissioned the mailers, did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the extent of the distribution of campaign literature.

Still, the line of attack is echoing in more rural parts of the state, where Trump’s allies, including Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, have used the Second Amendment to boost turnout. All over the state, around here 4 out of 10 adults have guns in their homes as of 2021, one of the highest percentages in the country.

Musk has offered a daily giveaway worth $1 million to registered voters who sign his super PAC’s petition on free speech and the right to bear arms. Still, he presented his eighth check at Lancaster City Hall on Saturday worries the lottery may be illegal.

In Allentown, Donald Trump Jr. attracted crowds who became very interested in the matter. Several participants were patrons of the shooting range. Even more were gun owners.

“It’s really the reason I vote every time,” said Mark Krause, 52. “I vote in every election, primary election, everything, just because I think it’s a very important issue.”

“This is right up there with the top,” said Al Anzivine, CEO of American Animal Arms, a gun accessories company. “I mean, we have the First Amendment, but it’s only as good as the Second Amendment that protects it.”

Equally widespread was skepticism that Harris had sincerely changed her position on gun buybacks. On the trail, Harris emphasized “reasonable” gun restrictions, such as red flag laws and universal background checks.

“We know exactly what they say at the beginning and what they will do,” said Louise Walker, a North Hampton massage therapist.

“They lie and make mistakes,” she added. “They do it so that people who aren’t paying attention won’t know what’s going on.”

However, not all participants were concerned about the violation of their Second Amendment rights.

“It’s going to take a lot of effort to get our weapons out of this country,” said Craig Schadt, 51, an Army veteran from Germansville.

“I mean, that’s what this country was built on,” he added. “It is written in our constitution. This is enshrined in our Bill of Rights. That’s why I don’t think they can do anything to take our guns away.

According to Schadt, gun rights will be subordinated to more pressing issues, such as the economy. This topic, as well as immigration, often appeared spontaneously in interviews with the portal Washington Examiner.

But the focus reflects how Republicans view the presidential race more as a matter of defining Harris than highlighting individual concerns.

In Pennsylvania, the state party sent other mailers linking it to “four years of failure” under President Joe Biden or, more often, portraying it as “dangerously liberal” on everything from crime to borders.

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Harris’ campaign declined to respond to a request for comment, but Democrats have chosen to highlight Project 2025, a conservative plan that Trump has disavowed, and say it will deprive their mailers of abortion access to Pennsylvania voters.

Trump denies he would impose federal restrictions on abortion.