When Kamala Harris finally answered some specific questions about the gun she owned and would use to blow home invaders away, as she told Oprah, it marked another highlight in the most dishonest and insulting of all Presidential campaigns at least since 1840. I had already expressed dubiousness about Harris’s surprising transformation into Dirty Harry here, and this week, in segments of the “Sixty Minutes” interview to be aired on Sunday, Harris was seen telling one of CBS’s Democratic operatives that she has fired the gun at a firing range (This should be verified, like her alleged McDonald’s stint, which has not been) and that it is a Glock, a semi-automatic handgun, even as Harris’s gun-hating party and President keep calling semi-automatics “weapons of war.”
The dizzying and mock-worthy reversal mandates an Ethics Alarms post, but Jonathan Turley beat me to it, and did such a terrific job (he even quotes “True Grit,” one of my favorite novels and my most cherished John Wayne film) that I’m going to send you over to his blog.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the post. Turley appears to almost as disgusted with Harris as I am. The problem is that everyone isn’t.
- “The reinvention of Vice President Kamala Harris in this election has been a thing to behold. In politics, candidates often reconstruct their records to secure votes, but Harris appears to have constructed an entirely mythical being. Once ranked to the left of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and viewed as among the most liberal members of the Senate, Harris has sought to convince the public that she is actually a frack-loving, gun-toting, border-defending moderate.”
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“Harris’s pledge to gun down intruders stands in stark contrast to her opposition to stand your ground laws. When she was the San Fransisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris was one of the signatories on the District Attorneys’ amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller — in support of the handgun ban.”
- For now, Harris wants to be clear that “I have a Glock, and I’ve had it for quite some time.” For critics, the reload is a bit much given her record. Yet, in a close election, many activists want voters in states like Pennsylvania to know that Harris is the virtual Jed Clampett of the Beverly Hills set. Indeed, you get the impression that she would use her Glock to frack, if only she could.”
If Harris wins, it will stand for the proposition that Americans will tolerate and vote for a Presidential candidate even if it is obvious that she is deliberately misrepresenting her views to get elected. Future candidates will be on notice that voters don’t care about integrity. Harris the ethics corruption candidate, and a Harris victory may rot away the nation’s leadership standards beyond repair.
Ethics Alarms 
Quoted in the Post:
“Harris’s pledge to gun down intruders stands in stark contrast to her opposition to stand your ground laws. When she was the San Fransisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris was one of the signatories on the District Attorneys’ amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller — in support of the handgun ban.”
You have often said that lawyers should not be judged as supporting the positions advocated by their clients. I agree with that. I would bet that most criminal defense attorneys do not advocate criminal activity (except as part of an overall marketing strategy, yet even that is not really necessary, as there are enough criminals around as it is).
Is this any different? Of course, the Stand your Ground opposition was as a Senator can be attributed to her, but her position as a District Attorney should not, no?
-Jut
Excellent point. Yes, as a DA, she is carrying out the perceived and expressed needs of her client. As Senator, she can be presumed to believe in what she advocates.
Jack,
I know the quote was Turley’s — not yours — but wouldn’t vowing to gun down home invaders fall under the Castle Doctrine, not “Stand Your Ground”? Even the most gun-hating liberals accept the idea that people have the right to defend their lives in their homes. Moreover, to get really technical, neither doctrine directly applies to guns at all, only the type and level of force one may bring when they fear for their safety.
Yes. Although in many states people have been prosecuted for using excessive force against unarmed burglars, especially when they are kids. It’s an area that varies widely from state to state.
In Massachusetts, it appears that their Castle Doctrine has quite a few limitations. You could easily be prosecuted in Massachusetts for killing an intruder if the DA felt that you could have retreated to end the threat. The force needs to be proportional to the threat as decided by the DA.
It is not true that gun-hating liberals think people have a right to defend their lives in their own homes. After almost every home invasion shooting I have seen, there was a barrage of criticism of the homeowner and calls to have them charged. In Michigan, you pretty much have to let someone shoot you before you can shoot back. The press is firmly in the camp against self-defense. When I searched for cases, the typical one had a title like “Homeowner charged after shooting a man attempting to break into his home”. You would think this would be a person who shot at someone outside the home, but the articles would then say ‘police found the body of XXX inside the home when they arrived’. Ones like this..
https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/local/homeowner-arrested-in-sunday-morning-brandon-street-shooting/503-76edcca9-64fb-4aa1-b680-2b47e1f937b3
Make no mistake, no matter how strong the Castle Doctrine is in your state, you are likely to be charged with a crime if you defend yourself against criminals in your home. This youtube clip is a typical ones I see routinely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1dpl70pWgw
Here is another one charged with murder (luckily acquitted).
https://abc7.com/home-invasion-granada-hills-shot-suspect/14132919/
Here is one in Virginia
https://www.greenspunlaw.com/case_results/court-overturns-conviction-in-killing-of-home-intruder.cfm
There was a shooting a block away from my house a few years ago. An armed man kicked in the front door of a home. The elderly homeowner came down the stairs. The intruder told the homeowner to drop his gun. The homeowner shot him instead. Even though the law in my state says that you cannot be charged or sued for killing someone who breaks into your house, the homeowner was charged with attempted murder. The DA claimed that since the suspect fled and was found outside the house, the homeowner couldn’t prove the suspect was in the house. The blood inside the entryway didn’t count. Luckily (???), the police took the suspect to the hospital and he walked out of the hospital several days later (there was no guard), and he was never found. With no victim, the homeowner’s attorney got the charges dropped.
I find a little encouraging that Harris thinks she NEEDS to pander to the right like this. It indicates the left doesn’t have the stranglehold on American culture that they wish they did.
Harris has to pander to everybody even if the pandering contradicts itself, like saying she wouldn’t change anything the Biden Administration did while saying she is an agent of change. There is literally nothing of substance she has to justify voting for her. It’s she’s a woman and of-color, she’s a Democrat, she isn’t senile, she isn’t Trump, and wouldn’t it be nice if women could kill their unborn kids without any restrictions. That’s it.
It is possible that Glocks are the most popular hand guns because they are relatively inexpensive (costing roughly $400 to $500), are lightweight, and easy to fire and clean. Therefore, it wouldn’t surprise that Harris has one and probably was issued one when she was top prosecutrix in California.
jvb
Glock 26 Gen 4: great for CCW
https://media1.tenor.com/m/KqQPPKJ6cX0AAAAd/ivan-vasilievich-back-to-the-future-im-not-worthy.gif
I bow to Prof. Turley for this masterpiece of wordcraft!
Wonderful line. Made me laugh out loud.
Given that Harris is a devotee of the George Santos School of campaigning, the only thing you can can be certain is she is not Trump.
Boy, that pretty much says it all.
Who doesn’t anyone use theme songs in TV shows and jingles in TV commercials anymore? Are those skills simply gone?
“Come and listen to the story of a man named Jed,
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
And then one day he was shootin’ at some food,
And up from the ground come a bubblin’ crude.
Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea.”
And so many great characters: Jethro, Miss Hathaway, Grannie. Just another version of the South concocted by Jewish comedy writers from Brooklyn, much the same as “Andy of Mayberry” and “Gomer Pyle.” A great American entertainment tradition. Goofy, but great.
I don’t see why her stating that she owns a gun make it plausible that she supports gun rights. Diane Feinstein was spectacularly anti-gun-for-you, but had almost a dozen firearms registered for concealed carry for her. Just because they think that THEY should be allowed to own guns doesn’t mean that they think YOU should be allowed to own guns. Almost all the anti-gun celebrities have armed bodyguards. All the anti-gun politicians are protected against YOU by firearms.