Harris has tackled gun restrictions to the right since taking over the Democratic ticket in August. She still supports banning assault weapons, but stops short of saying those weapons should be turned in in a mandatory buyback program.

Harris’ return is part of an attempt to moderate her image after running as an unabashed progressive in her 2019 presidential campaign. However, Harris remains haunted by the position as Republicans try to energize their base with a week before election day.

The Pennsylvania Republican Party sent several emails warning that Harris wants to leave voters “disarmed and defenseless.” Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump’s surrogates have argued that Democrats will dismantle the Constitution, including the Second Amendment, if given the chance.

The focus is natural for Donald Trump Jr., an avid hunter who took to the barn in Pennsylvania on his father’s behalf on Monday.

He ended his day at a shooting range outside Allentown, where he told supporters their children risk losing their gun rights if they don’t get their friends to vote.

“All these inalienable rights are on the table as far as the Democrats are concerned, and they tell us that every day,” Donald Trump Jr. said.

The warning is the latest example of Republicans using the culture wars to stoke Republican enthusiasm in Pennsylvania, a must-win state for Harris on Election Day.

One much bigger bet on transgender policy, the Trump campaign has spent tens of millions on ads from Pennsylvania to North Carolina highlighting Harris’ past support for sex-reassignment surgeries for prison inmates.

Republicans don’t devote the same resources to the topic of gun rights, but it’s a tool surrogates have used to create a cultural divide between Harris and those Republicans they seek to prosecute.

Donald Trump Jr. opened his firing range event by mocking Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who apparently tormented to load a rifle earlier this month while pheasant hunting in Minnesota.

“Guys, I don’t know. I do a lot of filming,” Donald Trump Jr. said. “It’s just not that hard.”

“Kamala worked at McDonald’s like Tim Walz knows how to load a shotgun,” he said of Harris’ insistence that she worked at the fast-food giant, even though the company has no records from 1983 to back it up.

Harris first argued a mandatory redemption program for assault weapons in the 2020 Democratic primary for president as he sought to differentiate himself from a crowded field of candidates. Then, as now, she spoke of a “false choice” between keeping the Second Amendment and passing gun restrictions.

Her campaign promise was to take executive action if Congress did not pass universal background checks. For gun manufacturers, she promised to revoke the licenses of those who violated the law and, in some cases, prosecute them for criminal liability.

Today, Harris sees her past outspokenness as a problem as she tries to shake off Republican criticism that she is out of step with the country’s mainstream.

Harris flaunts his recent ownership of a Glock and draws on Walz’s experience as an outdoorsman to tame his image. And while she hasn’t taken a conservative view on the topic, as she has on immigration, Harris has rhetorically tried to assuage concerns that she would move to confiscate guns as president.

In a podcast appearance on Monday, Harris even claimed that Trump, not her, is the one who wants it second amendment ceases.

“Look, I’m in favor of the Second Amendment. I don’t think we should be taking away anybody’s guns,” she said. “He wants to terminate the Constitution of the United States.”

At one point, Trump said the election rules in the Constitution should be rescinded because he suspected fraud in 2022.

Republicans are determined to continue to challenge Harris’ previous stance on gun rights, with three emails devoted to the topic being sent to a residence in downtown Philadelphia in the past month.

“Do you have a gun? Kamala Harris will take them or arrest you,” said a flier reviewed by Washington Examiner. Another warned that “a vote for Kamala Harris is a vote against you.”

The message is unusual for Philadelphia, a blue stronghold that tends to favor gun restrictions. The Pennsylvania Republican Federal Committee, which commissioned the mailers, did not respond to repeated requests for comment on how widely the campaign literature is being distributed.

Still, the line of attack is resonating in more rural parts of the state, where Trump allies, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, have used the Second Amendment as a way to boost voter turnout. All over the state, around 4 out of 10 adults have guns in their homes as of 2021, among the highest percentages in the country.

Musk has offered a $1 million daily giveaway to registered voters who sign his super PAC’s petition on free speech and the right to bear arms. On Saturday, he delivered his eighth check to a town hall in Lancaster, despite concerns the lottery might be illegal.

In Allentown, Donald Trump Jr. drew a crowd that cared deeply about the issue. Several of the participants were patrons of the shooting range. Even more were gun owners.

“It’s really the reason I vote every time,” said Mark Krause, 52. “I vote in every election, primaries, everything, just because I feel like it’s such an important issue.”

“It’s at the top,” said Al Anzivine, CEO of American Animal Arms, a gun accessories company. “I mean, we have a First Amendment, but it’s only as good as the Second Amendment protecting it.”

Equally common was skepticism that Harris was serious about changing her position on gun buybacks. On the trail, Harris emphasized “reasonable” gun restrictions such as red flag laws and universal background checks.

“We know exactly what they say at first is what they’re going to do,” said Louise Walker, a massage therapist in North Hampton.

“I’m lying, flip flop,” she added. “I’m doing it to convince people who aren’t paying attention, I don’t know what’s going on.”

However, not all participants were concerned about a violation of their Second Amendment rights.

“It’s going to take a lot to get our guns out of this country,” said Craig Schadt, 51, an Army veteran from Germansville.

“I mean, that’s what the country was founded on,” he added. “It’s in our Constitution. It’s in our Bill of Rights. So I don’t think there’s anything they can do to take away our weapons.”

For Schadt, gun rights will be subordinated to more immediate concerns, such as the economy. This topic, plus immigration, frequently came up unprompted in interviews with Washington Examiner.

But the emphasis reflects how Republicans see the presidential race as more about defining Harris than highlighting an individual concern.

In Pennsylvania, the state party sent other correspondents linking her to “four years of failure” under President Joe Biden or, more commonly, described her as “dangerously liberal” on everything from crime to the border.

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The Harris campaign declined to respond to a request for comment, but Democrats chose to highlight Project 2025, a conservative plan that Trump has disavowed and says would end abortion, in their emails to Pennsylvania voters.

Trump denies he would enact federal restrictions on abortion.