On September 9, 2024, the Kamala Harris campaign released a sparse set of policies less than two days before the presidential debate. The debate was held on September 10, with former President and leading presidential candidate Donald Trump. According to the British left-wing paper, the Guardian, the posting of policy positions came after criticism about the lack of policy specifics. During the debate, Kamala Harris claimed she was a gun owner and she would never take anyone’s guns. However, in her campaign policy statement, candidate Harris says she will ban “assault weapons.” While “assault weapons” is a political, Orwellian term used by anti-gun proponents, it is generally understood to include most semi-automatic firearms.

Here are the specific policies that impact rights protected by the Second Amendment and attempts of the Democratic party to exert control over the Supreme Court. The policy positions are sparse. Here are the official quotes. From kamalaharris.com:

President Biden and Vice President Harris encouraged bipartisan cooperation to pass the first major gun safety law in nearly 30 years, which included record funding to hire and train over 14,000 mental health professionals for our schools. As head of the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, she spearheaded policies to expand background checks and close the gun show loophole.

Both “gun violence” and “gun show loophole” are, again, Orwellian terms meant to deceive and promote a desired outcome. They have little to do with reality. “Gun violence” is defined to include suicides, homicides, and accidents, all of which have different causes and strategies of prevention. The term “gun violence” ties these different situations, some of which are committed with guns, into a whole to shape the narrative that guns are a cause, not a means. Fatal accidents with guns have been reduced by 94% as the number of guns in the USA per capita has risen by 4,300 percent.  As the number of guns per person in the USA increased by 4.3, the rate of fatal accidents with guns has declined from 1.84 per 100K population to .15 per 100K population.

Most people who are killed with guns deliberately kill themselves. They commit suicide. Guns are a means, not a cause, of suicide. Place draconian restrictions on gun ownership, and the suicide rate does not change. People who want to kill themselves shift to other methods.

Homicides are another means versus cause situation. The rate of homicide in the USA is not linked to the rate of gun ownership. Gun ownership has steadily increased in this country, while homicide rates have risen and fallen.

The Harris campaign has claimed the homicide rate is historically low. They fail to mention the rate of gun ownership is historically high. Gun ownership does not cause homicides. To think it does requires ignoring the data collected over the last 60 years.

There is no “gun show loophole”. Guns sold at gun shows are subject to the same restrictions as guns sold at other places. The desire is to create a database of guns and gun owners in the United States. Otherwise there would not be a requirement to record owner information, descriptions and serial numbers of guns when they are sold. Elimination of the “gun show loophole” is code for gun registration to facilitate gun confiscation, gradually, or all at once, sometime in the future.

The Harris campaign promises to directly violate the Second Amendment. From the campaign:

 She’ll ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require universal background checks, and support red flag laws that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

Banning “assault weapons” means banning semi-automatic rifles. These are some of the most commonly owned guns in the USA, associated with the lowest number of homicides. Banning “high-capacity” magazines means banning some of the most common parts of guns in the USA, numbering in the hundreds of millions. This is directly opposite of what the Supreme Court has ruled about the Second Amendment.

Using a means-ends argument is not allowed in cases involving fundamental rights. If they were, the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments would have no meaning.  “Universal background checks” have been covered. It is code for universal gun registration. “Red flag laws” are a way to confiscate guns without due process. Every state has a process for locking up dangerous people. The process has been in place for 50 years, and it has many due process protections for the person who is being accused of being a danger to themselves and others. Red flag laws, instead, focus on disarming people without due process, not on whether a person is dangerous or not.

Candidate Kamala Harris can only accomplish the above policies if she eviscerates the Supreme Court. She has plans to do so. From the Harris campaign:

She will also support common-sense Supreme Court reforms—like requiring Justices to comply with ethics rules that other federal judges are bound by and imposing term limits—to address the crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.

The Constitution directly prohibits term limits on Supreme Court justices. “Ethics rules” imposed by the legislature and the executive branch directly violate the Supreme Court’s constitutional structure as independent of the Congress and the Presidency. Neither the Congress nor the executive branch is allowed such power in the Constitution. Congress has power over the inferior courts by the Constitution but not over the Supreme Court.

The Harris campaign gun and Supreme Court policies are a direct assault on the Constitution and the rule of law.  This has been the policy of the far left for decades. The “Progressives” in power loved the Supreme Court when it acted as a super-legislature to implement its policies. When it acts as an independent judiciary and upholds the limits on governmental power put in place by the Constitution, they hate it and work to destroy its independence.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.