Why Kamala Harris is leaning into her gun ownership

Gun buyback proposals gained steam during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race, first endorsed by Eric Swalwell and earning support from Harris, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders and – most memorably – Beto O’Rourke.

“We have to have a buyback programme, and I support a mandatory gun buyback programme,” Harris said in October 2019.

“It’s got to be smart, we got to do it the right way. But there are five million [assault weapons] at least, some estimate as many as 10 million, and we’re going to have to have smart public policy that’s about taking those off the streets, but doing it the right way.”

Buyback initiatives have taken place in cities across the US since at least the 1970s, though research indicates, external that they are often very expensive and not effective as a standalone strategy to curb gun violence.

Advocates, however, point to the impact of two mandatory buybacks in Australia following the deadliest mass shooting on its soil in 1996. The country has largely avoided mass firearm violence since that incident.

In making her own case for buybacks as part of a broader effort to rein in gun violence, Harris explained back in 2019: “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.”

She argued US politicians were offering American voters “a false choice” between protecting gun rights under the Second Amendment and taking guns away.

“It’s a false choice that is borne out of a lack of courage from leaders who must recognise and agree that there are some practical solutions to what is a clear problem in our country,” she said.