Mass shootings, a depressingly common occurrence in the United States, have generally led to greater support for more restrictive gun laws. Twice this century — after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 and the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017 — there have been dramatic shifts in polling that have resulted in a seemingly permanent increase in the share of Americans who say support stricter gun laws. However, the political coalition to pursue radical reform never materialized. Still, Democrats have long championed a suite of “common sense” gun reforms that stop well short of a wholesale overhaul of gun ownership rights in the United States, and Kamala Harris is no exception.

A gun owner’s modest reform platform

Harris stunned many liberals during her Sept. 10 debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump when she said she was a gun owner. “This business about taking away everyone’s guns — Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. So stop the continued lie,” she said in response to Trump, who claimed he wanted to confiscate guns. She owns a gun “probably for the reason many people do: for personal safety. I was a career prosecutor,” Harris. said in her unsuccessful run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019. Many prosecutors and judges across the country fear retaliation for their role in the prosecution of those accused of crimes. During that campaign, Harris also supported mandatory assault weapons redemption programsthat would require owners of such guns to turn them in for cash compensation if Congress passes a renewed ban similar to the one that was in place from 1994 to 2004. Harris now says he no longer supports buybacks.