Vice President Kamala Harris said in a Monday interview with 60 Minutes that she owns a Glock pistol, but she advocated and currently advocates for gun control measures that would ban or heavily restrict the very pistol she owns.
Despite Harris’ ownership, she advocated for Proposition H, a total handgun ban in San Francisco in 2005 when she was district attorney for the city, and currently backs bans on “high-capacity” magazines and “assault weapons,” according to her campaign website. Glocks can accept magazines that hold well over 10 rounds. If Harris owned a standard issue magazine for a large range of Glock’s pistol offerings, it could land her a misdemeanor and up to a year in prison in her home state, according to the California Penal Code.
The magazine capacity on many Glock pistols would not only be banned under her past legislative records and potentially be banned under her current proposals, but would be designated as “unsafe” under California law since Glocks do not have the required loaded chamber indicator and magazine disconnect, according to The Reload.
Under the standards set by the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, many Glock pistols would be banned for having “high capacity” magazines if it were put into place today. Harris advocates for the reinstatement of the ban in her current campaign, according to Everytown for Gun Safety in July.
Harris cited her background in law enforcement as a reason for her owning a Glock, according to the interview. The most commonly issued Glock model for law enforcement is the Glock 22, which holds 15 rounds at standard capacity, according to the manufacturer.
In California, as of January 1, 2001, with the passage of the Unsafe Handguns Act (UHA), in order for a handgun to be considered “safe,” it must be on the list of handguns that are “certified for sale,” according to the state’s website. Not a single Glock model made in the U.S. has been approved for sale under the UHA.
“No Glock handguns have been approved for sale under the UHA,” Mark Oliva, director of public affairs at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Of course, as a law enforcement officer, she would be exempt from that restriction, which raises questions as to why she believes it is appropriate for her to purchase a handgun for her own self-defense that she designated as prohibited for sale to California citizens.”
It is unclear if she retains her exemption from the UHA as a law enforcement officer.
My background is in law enforcement. Yes, I own a glock.pic.twitter.com/gTbjrEMCPA
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 8, 2024
Despite her past of supporting sweeping gun control measures, Harris has insisted in her 2024 campaign that she is “not taking anyone’s guns away.”
Harris also supported a mandatory gun buyback for “assault weapons” during her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019. However, experts told the DCNF that her proposal would be as ineffective as it is unconstitutional due to its underlying ban on commonly owned firearms protected by Second Amendment precedent.
“I think if the Supreme Court were to look at something like the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban today and keep in mind, the Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality of that ban at the time, and that was just a ban on future sales … I think almost certainly that it would be unconstitutional,” Amy Swearer, senior legal fellow at the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to the DCNF request for comment.
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