She has in the past such as in 2020 said that she would personally shoot to kill a home intruder?
I’ve known a fair number of attorneys in state criminal justice systems — all were Democrats and all had personal firearms. I’d be surprised if any DA did not have some kind of personal protection. They didn’t generally advertise it, though, or make it part of their identity.
As to whether they’d shoot an intruder in their homes, I guess I’d trust their judgement in a given circumstance more than the causal hunters I’ve known, and I can’t fault Harris for not splitting hairs here.
But she didnt say she would be doing the shooting.
No, and she didnt say it here either.
Saying that is a big leap over standard personal safety. It’s castle doctrine in its extreme version. Yes it sells well with average Joe gun owner who is imagining self defense but as a former AG she very much knows trespass automatically being met with lethal force is a … controversial subject.
I strongly suspect her gun is not in her current premises. The idea that she as VP has weapon accessible to her for her personal protection that she would personally use to kill an intruder is not a serious one. It is a planned calculated play.
She did the Wired Auto-Complete Interview. Canny move.
Sorry; not intended to post
I was hoping for some fun off-the-wall ones mixed in, but no joy there. Nicely done but a little dull for one of these Wired interviews.
I’d go further, actually. I see it as a nothingburger that is getting an excessive amount of attention only because the race is deadlocked and neither side seems to be able to get a toehold on anything that moves the needle. So any time there’s a point of possible interest, the discourse jumps on it with ravenous hunger, hoping this will be the thing that puts some energy into this endless and stultifying dead heat.
My mental analogy is that it’s like stepping on a grain of rice. If the grain of rice is on a gravelly beach, you will never notice. But if it’s on a polished marble floor, you feel it immediately.
This gun comment is a grain of rice, and the only reason anyone cares is that the floor is smooth.
The wired thing was great - I can’t imagine trump being able to carry that off at all without turning into grandpa Simpson.
It’s her standard stump speech but may reach a different audience in this format. I am impressed with the creativity her team is using in trying to access different markets. It also bugs me that the opposition keeps talks about word salad. She gives clear concise answers with some personal anecdotes for context but compared to “the weave” her answers are brilliant. I also like the little things these interviews reveal about her like not wanting to drop the cards on the ground to avoid being seen as littering and holding off on meeting her step kids until she was sure the relationship was serious. I didn’t know if I would personally like her previously but it didn’t matter because she was NOT TRUMP. Now I find that although I disagree with some of her policies (taxing unrealized capital gains discourages savings and investment) I am glad that she is the candidate because I respect her as a person.
There is no sense whatsoever in possessing a weapon for purposes of personal safety if one isn’t willing to shoot. Somebody who says they keep a gun for self-defense but they wouldn’t actually shoot anybody is just being an ass.
– I’ll grant that the weapon might be carried by someone willing to shoot a bear (or other dangerous non-human) but not willing to shoot a human. However, in the context of the rest of her current and previous situations, I see no difference between Harris saying that she keeps a weapon for purposes of self-defense and her saying that she’s willing to shoot an attacker.
I didn’t take her to mean that she’d randomly start shooting at anyone who rings the doorbell, or even tries to open the door without knocking first. Especially since she’s also said the weapon’s kept locked up.
It also demonstrates that she has more courage than he does when she challenges him and he’s too chicken to take up the challenge. Losing—to a girl especially—is not very manly. Donald is getting his ass kicked by Kamala whether he admits it or not.
The shit we get tied up in knots over. “I am a legal, responsible gun owner, and if someone breaks into my house, they risk getting shot” is not a controversial statement. It also takes all the steam out of the “Harris hates guns and will take yours away” Trump lie.
That’s it.
Is a different statement than what she made.
It is not worth getting stuck on. It pings my pandering meter and that makes me worry that others will get that sense too. Glad most here don’t and hope that reflects the assessment of those who were the target of the statement.
I think you’re being overly critical here.
More likely, she planned that statement for the likely possibility that she would eventually be asked a question for which it would be the natural answer. But good preparation is usually a part of “thinking quickly on one’s feet”. The folks (like Trump) who don’t plan things because “they prefer to think on their feet” are generally terrible at thinking on their feet.
Where have you been the past few decades? The extreme version of “castle doctrine” is “I exist, and I have a home somewhere, therefore I’m justified in blowing away anyone, anywhere, just because I’m cowardly”. The old, established version of castle doctrine, that’s relevant here, is the quite sane statement that by the time that someone’s breaking into your home while you’re in it, it’s reasonable to consider that a personal threat to you.
Moderating:
I’ll make this official now. If you want to continue this gun discussion, take it to a new thread. It has achieved hijack in this thread.
How to Reply as a linked Topic
Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, looks like a curving arrow point to the right.
Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
That is actually the best method.
Oh man - you made the mod use his “Big Text” voice.
Meanwhile, Harris has picked up the endorsement of a metric buttload of national security people:
There’s also a pointless celeb kerfuffle in which Janet Jackson said she “heard [Harris] wasn’t black” and then apologized (or her people apologized on her behalf) for saying that. I’m not going to bother linking because that’s pretty much all there is of that story anyway.
And allegedly 60 Minutes is working on lining up back-to-back Trump and Harris interviews.
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/22/harris-trump-60-minutes-interview
Hid off-topic posts about guns, replying to continue the hijack of this thread.
So I do actually have a problem with that attitude (I have been a victim of a home invasion burglary and still think I would have been drastically worse off of i’d had a gun and used it). The acceptance of widespread gun ownership for self defense is one of my main problems with living in America (that don’t involve POTUS 45). But despite that am still absolutely fine with Harris saying this.
Winning this election is all that matters, and like it or not this kind thing does resonate with voters (especially median swing state voters) so if she can say it believably, then she should say it and anyone on the left who has a problem needs to STFU.