There's no guarantee that gun control or the Second Amendment will be a topic of discussion during tonight's debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, but with the shootings at Apalachee High School still in the headlines, my guess is that we'll hear at least one question about a ban on so-called assault weapons from moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir. 

On today's Bearing Arms' Cam & Co, I asked The Reload's founder and Second Amendment journalist Stephen Gutowski what question he'd most like to see posed to the candidates. 

I'd like to hear more detail from them on exactly what they would do in their term. We haven't seen a lot of detail from either of these candidates in their public statements. Kamala Harris repeats the same three policy positions that Joe Biden was holding going into the race. Obviously more detail on why her campaign has walked back her position on mandatory buybacks of AR-15s and other similar firearms would be ideal. Her campaign said that, but they haven't given any detail about why, or for instance, if she would sign a bill that has that provision in it. They just said she wouldn't push for it anymore after campaigning on it in 2019. 

That question, frankly, could be asked about any number of Harris's positions just five years ago. As my friend and colleague Ed Morrissey has highlighted at HotAir, even CNN's Erin Burnett appeared "astounded" at some of the policies Harris embraced in her brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019 during a segment with K-File's Andrew Kaczynski on Monday. 

Burnett seemed most shocked by Harris' pledge to provide "taxpayer-funded gender transitions" for illegal immigrants, but there's more, of course: 

In another measure of extremism, Harris claimed in the same questionnaire to support drug legalization -- and not just for marijuana. Kaczynski spells out that Harris wanted to legalize all drugs for recreational purposes, at the federal level. That would include, as Kaczynski notes, "fentanyl, crack, cocaine," as well as heroin, meth, and other dangerous substances.

Doesn't that seem rather ... extreme?

It does to the campaign now, of course. Harris refused to answer any questions about this, but the campaign did respond ... sort of. They offered an anonymous statement on behalf of Harris that promised she had flip-flopped on just about everything she claimed to have ever believed.

The Harris/Walz campaign's excuse is that "the vice president's positions have been shaped by three years of effective governance as part of the Biden/Harris administration", adding that "as president, she will take that same pragmatic approach, focusing on common sense solutions for the sake of progress." 

That says nothing at all about why Harris has shifted her positions, or whether or not she'd reverse course once elected. It also makes Harris look a bit stupid, in my opinion. By 2019 Harris had served as District Attorney in San Francisco, California's Attorney General, and had been in the Senate for almost two years. She had a lifetime in politics to influence her policy choices, but three years serving as vice-president somehow upended her world view and forced her to adopt a more "pragmatic" approach? 

While Gutowski would like to see Harris have to answer for her lack of specificity in her gun control plans, he'd also like to see Donald Trump elaborate on his support for the Second Amendment. 

He's been pretty quiet on the issue as of late, at least since the RNC. I don't know that he's detailed any specific policies. I think the closest we've gotten is earlier in the campaign he's promised to undo some of the executive actions Biden has done. That's something concrete, but pretty mild, I would say, in terms of policy proposals. So is he going to push for things like the Hearing Protection Act, which would deregulate suppressors, or national reciprocity for right-to-carry permits. These are top priorities for the gun rights movement and have been for a long time. So are these going to priorities if he wins? 

I doubt the moderators are going to bring up the Hearing Protection Act or right-to-carry reciprocity (even though Tim Walz has been vocally opposed to the idea for a number of years). If guns are even a topic of tonight's debate, my guess is it will be in the form of a question about banning so-called assault weapons. I could see the moderators press Trump on why he isn't calling for a gun ban after being the target of a would-be assassin who used a semi-automatic rifle, but if they're going to ask him why his stance hasn't changed they also need to ask Harris why her campaign claims she has changed her mind about a mandatory "buyback" of so-called assault weapons, and what led to that shift in her position.

If the moderators wanted to spend a little more time on Second Amendment issues, they could also ask Donald Trump about his bump stock ban that was overturned by the Supreme Court, Harris's support for D.C.'s handgun ban struck down in Heller, and her criticism of the Bruen decision, which she claimed defies common sense and the Constitution. Given that gun control and the Second Amendment weren't brought up at all during Trump's debate with Joe Biden, I'm skeptical that ABC News will spend much time on the issue tonight, but I'd love to be proven wrong if that meant we get to see a serious and substantive discussion about our right to keep and bear arms and the attempts to regulate it out of existence. 

Check out the entire conversation with Stephen Gutowski, which also touches on his coverage of the NRA's recent board meeting in Dallas, in the video window below. And you can help support the independent pro-Second Amendment reporting here at Bearing Arms by signing up to become a a VIP or VIP Gold member. Use the promo code FIGHT and save 60% off your membership, which will give you exclusive stories, an ad-free experience, and other benefits, while helping us to take on Big Tech censorship and the rampant anti-2A bias in the media.