Gutowski isn't alone. In a lengthy piece at Semafor on the politics of Harris's claim of gun ownership, Shelby Talcott reports that she asked the campaign a simple question: Does Harris still support a ban on handgun ownership, as she did in 2005? 

As conservatives point out whenever Harris paints herself as a gun-loving American, the vice president previously discussed mandatory buybacks of assault rifles in her 2019 run — today, Harris’ campaign has said she wouldn’t push such an initiative. In 2005, meanwhile, she supported a ballot measure in San Francisco that would ban pistols. Her campaign declined to comment on the record on whether that remains her stance today, though a 2008 Supreme Court decision overturning a similar ban in Washington, DC largely ended policy conversations around the idea.

Note that Talbott says the campaign declined to comment on the record, which indicates a campaign staffer said something in response... just not anything the campaign wanted to get out there. Now, I find it hard to believe that even a low-level staffer would be so stupid as to suggest that Harris is still supportive of a ban on handguns (even though I suspect that is the case), but the campaign's refusal to offer even a milquetoast comment along the lines of "As a gun owner, Kamala Harris believes that we can support the Second Amendment while still supporting reasonable, commonsense gun safety measures" is somewhat surprising. 

So why isn't Harris willing to state on the record that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms? The simplest explanation is that she doesn't believe that to be the case. Harris not only backed a ban on handguns in San Francisco that required existing owners to turn them over to the local government, she argued to the Supreme Court in 2007 that Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban should be upheld and that the Court shouldn't adopt the position that the Second Amendment isn't tied to service in a militia. Two years ago, she said the Supreme Court's decision in Bruen recognizing a right to bear arms "defied common sense and the Constitution", even though the plain language of the text of the Second Amendment explicitly protects the right to carry. 

Harris's record is full of comments and policy statements that stand in direct contradiction to our individual right to keep and bear arms, and there's nothing to suggest that she's changed her mind at any point between 2005 and 2024. Even Harris's claim of gun ownership isn't evidence that she believes we have a right to own a gun. She's repeatedly tied her own alleged gun ownership to her work as a prosecutor, and in California law enforcement (which includes prosecutors and District Attorneys) are routinely exempt from the state's draconian gun laws. They can purchase "off-roster" handguns not available to civilians at gun shops, they can buy and equip their guns with "large capacity" magazines, and can even avoid the state's 10-day waiting period and the "1-in-30" gun rationing law that was recently struck down in federal court. 

In other words, even if Kamala Harris doesn't think she had the right to own a gun, she had the power and authority to do given her position as a prosecutor. And coincidentally or not, when Harris was asked by 60 Minutes why she purchased a Glock, her response was to first hem and haw before pointing to her background in law enforcement as the reason for her purchase.  

With less than a month to go before Election Day, Harris may very well be able to run out the clock before these questions are asked during a televised interview or a streamed podcast. It's become painfully evident that Harris doesn't want to talk about the details of her current gun control agenda or her extensive support for bans on handguns in the past. It's up to us, however, to keep asking "why" as often and as loudly as we can.