Vice President Kamala Harris made waves on the campaign trail when she announced she and running mate Tim Walz were both gun owners in an attempt to paint the Democratic ticket as friendlier toward the Second Amendment.
But some women who own guns told Fox News Digital they aren’t buying it.
“When Kamala Harris started talking about owning a Glock, I felt nothing,” said Amara Barnes, founder of Women Gun Owners Association of America. “We all realize that it’s pandering and virtue signaling to the right, and she’s hoping that we’re too dumb not to realize that she is completely anti-gun.”
During the presidential debate on Sept. 10, former President Trump attempted to highlight how Harris has distanced herself from previously held far-left stances, pointing to past stances on fracking, defunding the police and gun control. Trump claimed Harris wanted to take people’s guns away, which Harris immediately disputed.
Instructor Jane Milhans shows a woman how to shoot an AR-15 at a rifle range near Tacoma, Washington. (Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)
“Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” she said. “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away. So stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.”
For weeks, her campaign dodged questions about the specific type of gun she owns and which state it was registered in.
“I have a Glock, and I’ve had it for quite some time,” Harris finally said in an October interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes.” And in a livestreamed town hall with Oprah Winfrey, Harris said if someone breaks into her house, “they’re gettin’ shot.”
Washington-based firearms instructor and Second Amendment advocate Jane Milhans called Harris’ Glock talk “smokescreen campaign rhetoric.”
“I do not believe that she is a gun owner that practices and supports our right to protect ourselves,” Milhans said.
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Jane Milhans teaches a gun-safety class at a rifle range near Tacoma, Washington. (Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)
Milhans came face-to-face with two burglars in her home nearly 20 years ago, and now dedicates 100 hours of her time each year to training other women how to safely handle firearms.
“I come across, every single day, women that have survived something or want to be able to protect themselves in the high crime areas,” she told Fox News Digital.
While men are still more likely to own a gun, women have been arming themselves more over the past few years.
Gun ownership rates vary along political lines too, with Republicans and GOP-leaning independents more than twice as likely to say they personally own a gun than Democrats and Democratic leaners, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey.
“Most women in America who own a firearm are not going to be voting for Kamala Harris,” Barnes said. “Her stance on gun rights doesn’t align with private firearm ownership.”
The percent of women who own a firearm increased 7% from 2016 to 2022, according to Gallup surveys. Male firearm ownership rates have remained stagnant around 40% over the same period. (Ramiro Vargas/Fox News Digital)
Harris promises to “ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require universal background checks, and support red flag laws,” according to her campaign website. She argues “commonsense gun safety laws” will help protect Americans from “gun violence in our schools, communities, and places of worship.”
When she ran for president in 2019, then-Sen. Harris pledged to sign a series of executive orders on gun control if Congress failed to act within her first 100 days in office. She also expressed support for mandatory gun buyback programs.
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Milhans is especially worried about the judges whom Harris may appoint if she is elected president, which could affect legal battles over gun control at both the state and federal level.
“She will appoint judges that most likely are anti-Second Amendment, anti-constitutional rights,” Milhans said. “When there are bad bills that go against our constitutional rights, we need to be assured that the court system is a fair process.”
The Harris campaign declined comment to Fox News Digital.
