Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), a contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, announced this week she will pursue executive action on gun control if she’s elected president.
“Thoughts and prayers are not enough,” Harris declared. “We need action.”
The liberal lawmaker said she will give Congress 100 days “to get their act together and pass reasonable gun safety laws” before she steps in with executive action.
Harris is not alone in her insistence that thoughts and prayers “are not enough.” Most recently, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called for “no more thoughts and prayers” following the deadly synagogue shooting in San Diego in April.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) likewise condemned thoughts and prayers in March, following the attack at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. In the aftermath of the shooting, she asked, “What good are thoughts and prayers when they don’t even keep the pews safe?”
What is Harris proposing?
As for Harris, in April, the presidential hopeful proposed a handful of executive actions she would take if she’s elected president next year, according to Politico.
Harris would take executive action to require universal background checks for all gun purchases, she would close the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” which would ban those who have been convicted of stalking or have a restraining order against them from purchasing firearms, and she would roll back a law that prevents victims from holding gunmakers and dealers liable for their losses, an issue that made headlines in the wake of the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
In March, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled the families of schoolchildren gunned down during the massacre can legally sue Remington Outdoor Co Inc., the manufacturer of the firearm used by the shooter who killed 20 children and six adult staff members.
“There are people in Washington, D.C., supposed leaders, who have failed to have the courage to reject a false choice which says you’re either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away,” Harris said of the lack of action on gun control laws.