Kamala Harris Stresses Importance of Assault Weapons Ban: “Weapons of War Have No Place on the Streets”

Kamala Harris became the first elected national leader to stop by The Jennifer Hudson Show since it began in September. The vice president came down hard on gun safety laws, stressing that there’s no reason for assault weapons to be available for anyone to buy. She also addressed the fact that the government shouldn’t have a say in what a woman can or can’t do with her body.

“It is reasonable to say that weapons of war have no place on the streets of America, and by that, I mean assault weapons,” Harris told host Jennifer Hudson. “Weapons of war. They were literally designed to be weapons of war. We need an assault weapons ban. These are reasonable things to do.”

The vice president also pointed out that there’s a false narrative that Americans have to either be in favor of the Second Amendment or want reasonable gun safety laws.

“That’s a false choice,” she stated. “The point is to say it is reasonable that we would have background checks because it is reasonable that you might wanna know if someone has been found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others before they can buy a gun. It’s just reasonable.”

She explained that in the current climate when kids are being taught how to read and write in classrooms, they’re also being taught how to hide from a gunman and be quiet if there’s a mass shooting happening. Harris shared that she’s visited schools where children have told her they prefer certain classrooms to others because some have closets they can hide in if they need to.

“I just think it is pitiful that the people in the United States Congress do not have the courage to stand up to the gun lobby, stand up to the NRA and say, ‘Look, I support the Second Amendment, but we need reasonable gun safety laws,'” the former attorney general said. “Have the courage.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Hudson and Harris began talking about abortion rights and how the Supreme Court took away a constitutional right from women that had been recognized by the country decades ago.

“By undoing Roe v Wade, [they] basically made a statement that the government is in a better position to tell women what to do with their own bodies than that woman is,” the vice president said. She then doubled down on a point she’s raised before about how someone doesn’t have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government shouldn’t be dictating what a woman does with her body.

“It troubles me so when we see what is happening in different places in our country, which is really about rolling back progress,” Harris said. “You know, the strength of our country has in so many ways been about our continuous path toward the expansion of rights, and now we’re seeing these extremist, so-called leaders who are trying to restrict rights.”

She sees a simple point when it comes to abortion rights: Trust women to make the decisions that are in their best interests.

“And if they choose with their priest, with their pastor, with their Rabbi, with whomever they choose,” Harris concluded, “trust her.”