White House grilled on Harris' gun ownership, mandatory gun buybacks
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday declined to answer questions on Vice President Kamala Harris' gun ownership and previous support of a mandatory gun-buyback program when announcing that President Biden would sign new executive action to address gun violence.
The Harris campaign has not responded to multiple requests this week from Fox News Digital seeking answers on what type of gun Harris owns, in what state the vice president is registered and when she last went to a gun range. More than two weeks have passed since Harris declared at the ABC News Presidential Debate in Philadelphia that she and her vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are gun owners.
Jean-Pierre said at the White House press briefing that Biden and Harris would be holding an event announcing new executive action to combat the gun violence epidemic. In a press release, the White House said that Biden and Harris would announce a new executive order "directing federal agencies to improve school-based active shooter drills and combat the emerging threats of machinegun-conversion devices and unserialized, 3D-printed firearms, as well as additional executive actions that advance the Biden-Harris Administration’s agenda to reduce gun violence and save lives."
"On the gun event today, what kind of gun does the vice president have? And when did she buy it?" Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich asked at the briefing.
"That's something for her office to speak to," Jean-Pierre shot back.
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Harris told former President Trump to "stop with the continuous lying" after he claimed the Democratic presidential nominee "has a plan to confiscate everybody's gun." She vowed on the debate stage that "we're not taking anybody's guns away." But while serving as San Francisco district attorney in 2005, Harris supported Proposition H, which would have banned handguns within city limits and would have required that residents turn in the handguns that they already owned by a certain deadline or face mandatory jail time, Heinrich noted, asking again Thursday whether the White House would give details on Harris' gun ownership.
"So can the White House get us an answer on that? Because she hasn't, and her campaign officials also haven't answered that question, even on television," Heinrich said.
"When it comes to the VP and owning a gun, she can speak for herself. The campaign could speak for that. Her office can speak for that. I'm not — that's for them to speak to," Jean-Pierre said. "There is no conflict here when we're saying that we want to see responsible gun ownership. That's what we want to see. Responsible gun ownership. I think that is what's important here."
Decrying gun violence as "an epidemic in our country," she continued: "Think about our schools, our grocery stores. It's an epidemic. We have done the work. We have seen violent crimes go down because of the work that this president and this vice president has done. There is an office to prevent gun violence. And that is something that she leads."
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"We're asking for responsible gun ownership. That's what we want to see. That's what's important here. And if people don't, don't want to, don't understand that, I don't know how to further even explain that to them," she said. "Our kids, our schools. There's an epidemic here. There's an epidemic. There are drills happening in our schools right now. That's something that the president's going to speak to that is traumatizing some of our kids because of this epidemic. And so that should be the focus. How do we make sure that we end this epidemic? We want to see responsible gun ownership. That's what we want to see."
Heinrich noted that the question was not about responsible gun ownership. She reiterated that she asked about a measure Harris supported "that would have required that non-law enforcement or military residents of the city turn in their handguns — so, no gun ownership, or face possible mandatory jail time versus what she's saying now and then also not answering the question of her gun ownership."
Clips have also surfaced of Harris, while San Francisco's district attorney, telling legal gun owners then that "just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn't mean we're not gonna walk into that home and check to see if you're being responsible and safe in the way you conduct your affairs," while speaking about the proposal.
"Again, that's something that she's going to have to speak to," Jean-Pierre said. "What I can speak to, this moment in this time, what we've been trying to do for the last three and a half years is making sure that we are dealing with an epidemic that is existing in our communities, that we see in our schools, that we see in, in grocery stores. It is an epidemic here. And what we're trying to do is prevent gun violence."
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"And we have seen that go down. We have, because of this work, because of the executive actions, because of a bipartisan legislation that was able to be done under this administration to deal with gun violence, something that we hadn't seen in 30 years. So there is some bipartisan support here to deal with a responsible way of having gun ownership. We need to do more here. We need to do more," she said.