Harris: We’re Focusing on Guns, Background Checks Not ‘Political Games’ on Impeachment

During an interview with “PBS NewsHour” aired on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris stated that the White House isn’t going “to be distracted by political games” like the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and will “stay focused” on efforts on guns, including background checks, because “It’s just reasonable that you might want to know before someone can buy a lethal weapon” if a court has found them to be a danger.

Co-host Geoff Bennett asked, “Also, on Thursday, House Republicans are going to open their impeachment inquiry into President Biden with their first impeachment hearing. What’s the administration’s approach, the administration’s strategy for dealing with that House Republican effort?”

Harris responded, “I think that we are very clear that we’re not going to be distracted by political games and we’re going to stay focused on what we have been doing. I’m here at Morehouse College, talking with a bunch of young leaders about the challenges that they face and the need for solutions. One of the big topics we talked about here was the issue of gun violence.”

She added, “[C]ongressional action is very important. There’s no question about that. And the failure to act I think is to the discredit of the importance of actually taking hold of the solutions that are at hand. [An] assault weapons ban, we’ve had one before, we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban, no reason for assault weapons to be on the streets of a civil society. We need background checks. It’s just reasonable that you might want to know before someone can buy a lethal weapon if they’ve been found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others, similar with red flag laws. Congress has the power to do that, but sadly, a lot of folks there just don’t have the courage to do it and have been selling this false choice, which suggests you’re either in favor of the 2nd Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away.”

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