Kamala Harris still isn't offering any specifics on her anti-gun agenda, but the DNC's party platform, released ahead of this week's convention in Chicago, makes clear that Democrats aren't stopping with a ban on so-called assault weapons. 

The platform, which repeatedly refers to a second Joe Biden term, spends less than a page on the party's plans to restrict the right to keep and bear arms but promises to deliver four more years of anti-2A extremism if Harris and Walz are elected in November. 

Democrats will establish universal background checks, a step supported by the vast majority of Americans, including gun owners. We will once again ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. We will require safe storage for guns. Democrats will end the gun industry’s immunity from liability, so gunmakers can no longer escape accountability. We will pass a national red flag law to prevent tragedies by keeping weapons out of dangerous hands. We will increase funding to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) for enforcement and prosecution, and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for firearm background checks. And, because the gun violence epidemic is a public health crisis, we will fund gun violence research across the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as community violence interventions. 

The platform talks up the Bipartisan Communities Safety Act (billed by Democrats as "the first significant federal gun safety law in nearly 30 years" and credits Biden for "the sharpest decrease in history" in the nation's homicide rate, even though it's become increasingly clear that the spike in homicides and violent crime that took place in 2020 was caused by the COVID pandemic, which resulted in the shuttering of court systems and pullback of police departments. Couple that with the "defund the police" movement adopted by many Democrats in 2020 and 2021 (subsequently scaled back starting in the 2022 election cycle), and it's no wonder that crime increased a few years ago. It's also not a surprise that we're reverting back to the norm of declining homicide rates in most U.S. cities, including those located in pro-2A, Constitutional Carry states. 

What is somewhat surprising is that the DNC didn't mention any of Biden's executive actions aimed at lawful gun owners like the ATF's rules on unfinished frames and receivers, pistol stabilizing braces, and private gun sellers the agency now says are "engaged in the business" of dealing guns. With a gridlocked Congress, the vast majority of the Biden/Harris moves on guns have come from executive branch actions. While the federal courts have largely recognized that these regulations were an overreach on the part of the ATF, I expected the DNC to at least reference these actions as part of its platform, especially since it was written with the idea that Joe Biden would be the Democrats' candidate in November. 

[Bearing Arms and Townhall media are giving 60% off during the convention! Use CODE FIGHT to get this deal!]

Then again, the DNC platform is silent on the specifics of the gun control policies it does explicitly endorse, so I guess it shouldn't be too much of a shock that they're hiding some of the most abusive acts of executive branch overreach that have taken part under Biden and Harris's watch. 

How does the DNC define "assault weapon", for instance? Is it every gas-operated semi-automatic long gun, as New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich has proposed, or are there specific cosmetic features that turn a semi-automatic rifle into an "assault weapon"? And if the DNC says these guns will be banned, and Harris is supposedly no longer in favor of a mandatory "buyback" of lawfully-owned "assault weapons", what do Democrats have in mind for the tens of millions of guns they want to ban that are already in circulation.. and what do they plan to do with those gun owners who aren't going to give them up? 

The DNC is also mum about the specifics of a federal "red flag" law. Would those subject to a "red flag" petition have access to a public defender? How long would the "temporary" loss of gun rights be? Would ex parte hearings where the subject of a petition has no ability to defend themselves be the standard operating procedure? What federal agency would be responsible for seizing guns after a "red flag" petition has been granted, and would there be any mental health component to a federal Extreme Risk Protection Order? 

There's something else missing from the DNC platform: even the vaguest support for the Second Amendment. I would have expected to see some weaselly language like "Democrats believe we can support the Second Amendment while adopting commonsense, reasonable gun safety measures", but even that is apparently too much for the Harris/Walz campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Heck, there's not even a shoutout to hunters in the platform, which is about the only gun-related activity (save for, perhaps, shooting clays) that Democrats seem to be okay with these days. 

While the platform may not offer any details of the Harris/Walz campaign, or even its full gun control agenda, it's still evident that the DNC views the Second Amendment as a problem to be solved, rather than a right to be protected. There are undoubtedly many more devils in the unrevealed details, but the platform itself makes it apparent that they want to exorcise the Second Amendment from polite society; turning a fundamental civil right into a privilege of the chosen few, the well-connected, and the party elite.