California/United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- When we discuss the track record of Senator Kamala Harris on Second Amendment issues, it comes down as pretty horrid. She’s really no better voting-wise than Dianne Feinstein, who famously declared that if she could have gotten 51 votes, she would have said “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn `em in.”
However, there is one decision related to firearms that Second Amendment supporters must back whole-heartedly and fiercely. She made the choice at one point to purchase a firearm for personal protection, and she has come under fire for making that choice. It is time for Second Amendment supporters to defend Kamala Harris.
I can hear the reactions to this now. One of them is very understandable: “Why should we defend her choice to own the firearm of her choosing when she seeks to deny it to us?” There will be calls to let her stew as she is attacked for her decision. While it would be easy to take joy in this and to just write it off as cannibalism among anti-Second Amendment extremists, that is the wrong thing to do.
Look, I am not pretending that some of her statements on our Second Amendment rights are not atrocious. She demonizes Second Amendment supporters, unlike Tulsi Gabbard. She’s demanded supposedly “sensible” gun control in the first 100 days of her presidency or she will take executive action. It is a track record of anti-Second Amendment extremism that is impossible to defend on any legal, moral, or ethical ground.
However, despite the slanders Kamala Harris has uttered against Second Amendment supporters, and despite her poor voting record, we need to defend her choice to own a firearm for personal protection. That defense should be vigorous and determined. We should do so, for reasons of principle. We’re not just fighting to preserve the Second Amendment for only those who have supported the NRA or who fight to preserve the Second Amendment. We are fighting to preserve it for everyone.
So, when we defend the right of Kamala Harris to buy the firearm of her choice for a lawful purpose – in this case, personal protection – we are defending it for everyone. Standing up for Kamala Harris in this instance is also standing up for the single mother who is working a late shift while she also tries to make ends meet while delivering pizzas (or doing some other job). It stands up for the homeowner looking for a gun to protect himself and those he cares about, whether it’s a pistol, shotgun, or AR-15.
Besides, while we have to defend Kamala Harris’s right to own the firearm of her choice, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be blind to practical effects of doing so. In one sense, our defense will also have a positive effect by causing more dissension among anti-Second Amendment extremists than there already is.
But there is an extremely slim chance for a different effect:
Taking a stand in support of Kamala Harris’s choice to exercise her Second Amendment rights might convince her to start re-thinking this issue, and at the very least moderate her tone towards Second Amendment supporters. It’s a long shot – the consistent defense is more likely to help sway the likes of a Tulsi Gabbard – but it is still worth pursuing.
Still, the primary reason to defend Kamala Harris against attacks for choosing to own a firearm is because that is the right thing to do. She may be an enemy of our rights, she may be exposing some hypocrisy on her part, but she still has Second Amendment rights, and we must defend them.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.