US presidential candidate Kamala Harris confirmed that she owns a gun during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, and joked about using the weapon to shoot intruders in her home.
The comments were made in front of Natalie Griffith, a 15-year-old who was injured in a shooting at Apalachee High School on September 4. Natalie was in class when she was shot twice and appeared at Harris’ rally still in a cast.
While gun ownership in America is common, the timing of Harris' remarks was bizarre – coming minutes after she listened to a first-person account of a recent high-school shooting.
Her ‘Unite for America’ rally in Michigan, which was hosted by Winfrey, boasted a number of celebrity attendees, including Hollywood stars Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep.
Natalie and her mother were given the chance to speak about their experience, and their emotional account left some of the audience in tears. Marilda called on the “people in power” in Washington to “make a change,” apparently referring to US gun control.
Harris nodded and applauded with the rest of the audience, and said Marilda’s plea was “common sense,” before making a strange about-face. When asked by Oprah whether the reports of her owning a gun were true, Harris proudly stated “I’m a gun owner,” and warned that “if somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot.” The Democrat then laughed, apparently suggesting that it was all a joke, and backtracked on her comment by saying: “I probably should not have said that.” She then mused that her staff “will deal” with her comments later.
However, her staff apparently failed, because her remarks have since been widely publicized in the media. Still, no one made mention of her threatening to shoot people right after talking to a shooting victim.
Netizens, however, noted that Harris’ admission contradicted her key campaign call, which is stricter gun laws, including a ban on assault weapons. Some X users called her a “liar” and a “hypocrite” for admitting to owning a gun while pushing to “take our guns away.”
Others mocked the Democrat for “changing her opinion every two seconds.” Some also noticed that Oprah, for one, did not seem amused by Harris’ gun joke. America’s darling TV host is herself a vocal advocate for stricter gun laws.
Gun ownership laws are a hotly debated issue in American society, where roughly one in three own a gun. A survey conducted in July by the Washington-based Pew Research Center indicated that about two-thirds of Americans want stricter gun laws.