Harris Didn’t Say “Take The Guns First”; Trump Did
The Claim
Kamala Harris once said: “Take the guns first. Go through due process second, I like taking the guns early.”
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Emerging story
As early as August 20th, 2020, a photo meme began circulating Facebook and Twitter that attributed a quote to Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for Vice President and current junior Senator from California. Over a headshot of the Senator, the block text reads: “Take the guns first. Go through due process second, I like taking the guns early.” The photo was shared rampantly among Conservative news pages and groups into mid-September.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation has revealed the claim to be false: the quote was actually said by President Donald Trump, not Kamala Harris. He made the remarks on February 28th, 2018 during a televised roundtable discussion on school violence following the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. The discussion is publicly available on C-SPAN and was widely reported on at the time. The video is below.
The context of those remarks begins with a point being made by Vice President Mike Pence, in which he notes current statutes in California that allow law enforcement officers leniency in receiving court orders to seize weapons owned by those deemed a threat to themselves or others (one which has even been expanded to employers, co-workers, and teachers in 2019). When he begins expressing praise for this program as being respectful of due process, President Trump interjects: “Or, Mike, take the firearms first and then go to court, because that’s another system. Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures.”
He continues, “I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida. He had a lot of firearms. They saw everything. To go to court would have taken a long time. So you could do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.”
On the other hand, Senator Harris notably remarked during a previous CNN town hall in April 2019, while she was running for the Democratic nomination for President, that she would demand Congress present her with new gun safety laws within the first 100 days of her presidency or she would take executive action. There is no record of any statement made by her or her team indicating she has ever been supportive of voiding due process procedures in Second Amendment cases, or saying anything resembling the quote being attributed to her.
