By Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris said during Tuesday's debate with Republican Donald Trump that she owns a gun, a revelation that surprised some voters but carried a deliberate political message.
Harris owns a handgun for personal safety reasons, and it is stowed away in a secure location at her California home, a White House source said on Friday. The source declined to identify the make of gun, but said it is the same gun Harris mentioned in 2019 on the campaign trail.
KEY QUOTES
"This business about taking everyone's guns away — Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We're not taking anybody's guns away, so stop with the continuous lying about this stuff," Harris said on Tuesday, referring to her running mate Walz.
In 2019, Harris told reporters "I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety. I was a career prosecutor."
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT:
Harris along with most of her Democratic Party, has pushed for more gun safety legislation to curb the high rate of gun deaths and injuries in the U.S. Republicans blocking this legislation have argued that Democrats want to seize Americans' guns and overturn the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that gives Americans the right to "bear arms."
Harris is trying to appeal to some voters among the one-third of Americans who own a gun and the two-thirds of Americans who support stronger regulation of gun ownership.
CONTEXT
Harris has called for implementing universal background checks and expanding red flag laws to take away guns from people who are deemed dangerous or unstable. She also wants to ban so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
"I'm a good marksman," Harris said during an onstage Politico interview in 2015 in California after being asked if she’d ever fired a gun. “Yes, I have shot a gun many times," she said, adding that it was a pistol.
Trump's New York concealed carry license was suspended in April 2023 after his criminal indictment, CNN reported. He turned over two of three pistols he owned and the third was moved to Florida, according to the news outlet.