Kamala Harris revealed she has a gun during the debate. Here’s what she owns

Vice President Kamala Harris surprised many Americans when she announced during Tuesday’s debate that she owned a firearm due to her history of fighting for stricter gun control.

“Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anyone’s guns away. So stop lying about this stuff all the time,” she said during the debate with Donald Trump.

But Harris did not disclose her gun ownership until she was campaigning in Iowa during her failed 2020 presidential campaign.

“I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for the same reason that a lot of other people do: for their own safety,” Harris told voters in April 2019, reminding them that she once served as city attorney.

Campaign officials confirmed at the time that Harris owned a handgun and kept it under lock and key. She did not disclose the make or model, but said she was a good shot.

Harris’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.

Harris spoke about shooting guns in a 2015 interview with journalist Mike Allen, who asked her if she had ever fired a gun.

Harris laughed and refused to say when she last used a gun.

“I’m a good shot,” she added, laughing. “Yeah, I’ve shot a gun many, many times.”

She confirmed she had fired a “gun” but declined to share further details.

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris steps out of her vehicle as she prepares to board Air Force Two

Then-Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., at an event in July 2019

During the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Harris proposed a series of gun control measures and even supported a controversial government-run mandatory gun buyback program.

She detailed her position in an MSNBC article forum on gun safety in October 2019.

“We need to have a buyback program, and I support a mandatory buyback program for weapons,” she said.

Harris warned that there are already an estimated 10 million assault rifles in the United States.

“We will have to have smart government policies to get these kinds of people off the streets, but we have to do it in the right way,” she said.

During her presidential campaign, Harris promised to implement new gun control policies through executive action if Congress did not act within 100 days.

“As president, I will take action to ban the importation of AR-15 assault weapons,” Harris said in August 2019.

Harris’s repeated calls for executive action on guns irked then-Vice President Joe Biden, who criticized her for suggesting she could pass major gun reforms without Congress.

Then-former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Senator Kamala Harris during a 2019 presidential primary debate

Then-Senator Kamala Harris advocated for executive action on gun control during her failed 2020 presidential campaign

“There is no constitutional authority to issue that executive order when they say, ‘I’m going to eliminate assault weapons,'” he told reporters. “You can’t do it by executive order, any more than Trump can do things when he says he can do it by executive order.”

When asked to respond to Biden’s criticism during a Democratic primary debate, Harris responded dismissively.

“Hey Joe, instead of saying, ‘No, we can’t do that,’ we should say, ‘Yes, we can do that,’” she said.

“Let’s be constitutional. We have a Constitution,” Biden responded.