Keisha Lance Bottoms, a senior advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris, reiterated on CNN Friday that the vice president’s remarks regarding shooting intruders were intended as humor, asserting that she anticipated the comments would attract media attention.
In a Thursday interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harris remarked that she would shoot a home intruder, subsequently laughing and acknowledging that she “probably shouldn’t have said that.” During her appearance on “The Lead With Jake Tapper,” Bottoms stressed that the vice president was joking and underscored her endorsement of “the Second Amendment” in response to Tapper’s inquiries regarding the statement.
“Well, she was joking. I mean, obviously, the vice president’s given multiple interviews and she knows that every single thing that she says will be picked apart. So I mean, it was a joke and she knew that we would still be talking about it today,” Bottoms said.
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“But I think it’s important that people know that the vice president respects the right to bear arms. That she supports the Second Amendment, but she wants responsible gun ownership and she wants our communities to be safe,” Bottoms continued. “So it was a joke that we‘re still talking about today. But again, I think it humanizes the vice president, and I think that‘s important as we are 46 days from the election.”
During her initial presidential debate with former President Donald Trump on September 10, Harris emphasized that both she and her running mate, Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are “gun owners,” asserting that they do not intend to take anyone’s guns away.
The Vice President has consistently advocated for a prohibition on what are termed “assault weapons” and has called for universal background checks for all firearm transactions, including handguns. While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Harris proposed mandatory buyback programs for “assault weapons” and indicated to MSNBC’s Craig Melvin in October 2019 that she might confiscate “as many as 10 million guns.”
