Kamala Harris backed total handgun ban as San Francisco district attorney

Vice President Kamala Harris backed a total ban on handguns in San Francisco, California, during her time as the city’s district attorney, according to a story published in the San Jose Mercury News in 2005.

Harris backed San Francisco Proposition H, which would have enacted a total ban on possessing a handgun in San Francisco with few exceptions, as well as the sale, possession, manufacturing, and distribution of all firearms and ammunition in the city, according to San Jose Mercury News. Her past support for the measure stands in contrast to her recent insistence during her 2024 presidential campaign that she is “not taking anyone’s guns away” if elected.

The ballot measure passed with 58% of people voting in favor but immediately faced legal challenges from groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA), according to The Reload. The proposal was swiftly struck down in court in 2006, as it was found to have violated the Second Amendment, according to the Office of the City Attorney.

“San Francisco was a leader in proposing gun restrictions at the local level, and she never met a gun control law she didn’t like,” Chuck Michel, president and general counsel of the CRPA who helped fight the measure, told The Reload. “Prop H was the crowning jewel.”

The law would have given San Francisco residents until January 1st, 2006, to surrender their handguns without consequences, according to the proposition. The only people allowed to own handguns would be “security guards, peace officers, or active members of the U.S.
armed forces.”

Handguns are the most frequently used firearm for self-defense, with 65.9% of defensive gun use cases utilizing them, according to a Georgetown University study conducted in 2021. Additionally, there are on average 1.7 million defensive gun uses per year.

Harris also supported mandatory gun buybacks for so-called “assault weapons” in 2019 during her campaign for the Democratic nomination. However, experts previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that confiscating so-called “assault weapons” would likely violate the Second Amendment as it would require an underlying ban.

She continues to support an assault weapons ban as well as mandating background checks on customers if a dealer sells more than five guns a year, according to The New York Times in July.

The Harris campaign declined to comment on the record to the DCNF.

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