This is one in a series of reports from States Newsroom on the key policy issues in the presidential campaign.
WASHINGTON — A mass shooting at a Georgia high school in September brought the issue of gun violence to the forefront of the presidential campaign.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump agree that gun violence is a major problem, but have strikingly different views on how to deal with it.
Two 14-year-old students and two math teachers were killed at Apalachee High School.
During a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, shortly after the Apalachee shooting, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said repeated calls for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and red flag laws.
Students shouldn’t be afraid of school shootings, she said. “They’re sitting in a classroom where they should be living up to their God-given potential, but part of their big, beautiful mind is worried that a shooter is going to break through the door,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, expressed his condolences.
“Our hearts go out to the victims and families of those affected by the tragic event in Winder, Georgia,” Trump wrote on his social media page Truth Social. “These beloved children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.”
Trump has survived two assassination attempts, one of which injured his ear, but has not changed his stance on guns.
After the first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said the Republican National Convention that the party will not back down from its support of Second Amendment rights.
During a Univision town hall with undecided Latino voters that aired Wednesday night, an audience member asked Trump how he would explain his gun policy to “the parents of school shooting victims.”
“We have a Second Amendment and the right to bear arms,” Trump said. “I’m a strong supporter of it. I think if you ever tried to get rid of it you wouldn’t be able to. They couldn’t take away the guns because people need them for security, they need them for entertainment, for sport and for other things. But in many cases they also need it for protection.”
A majority of Americans view gun violence as a problem — about 60% — and expect it to only get worse in the next five years. according to a study by the Pew Research Center.
There were 421 mass shootings this year Gun Violence Archivesthat tracks gun violence in the United States
For the third year in a row, in 2022 – the last year of final data – it was firearms the most common cause of death for children and teenage people aged 1 to 17, according to a report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
Harris’ record
After two mass shootings in 2022, Congress passed the most comprehensive bipartisan gun safety law in decades.
In Uvalde, Texas, 19 children and two teachers were murdered, marking the second deadliest mass shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012. In Buffalo, a white supremacist targeted a black neighborhood and killed ten black people in a grocery store.
The package passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden provided $11 billion in mental health funding and $750 million for states to enact warning laws. In addition, loopholes were closed and, among other things, a White House office was set up to prevent gun violence.
Red flag laws allow courts, among other things, to temporarily take away a firearm from a person who poses a danger to themselves or others.
Biden tapped Harris to lead the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which helps local communities implement the 2022 bipartisan gun legislation and supports communities affected by gun violence.
Trump’s record
During Trump’s first presidency, he had a mixed record on gun policy.
After a mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Trump administration moved to ban bump stocks, which allow an automatic rifle to fire bullets quickly.
However, the US Supreme Court, to which Trump appointed three conservative judges, the ban on bump stocks was lifted.
Trump also threatened to veto the legislation Congress would have strengthened gun background checks.
Promise: a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines
Democrats have long called for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which are typically used in mass shootings.
The U.S. previously had a ban on assault weapons, but it expired in 2004 and Congress failed to extend the ban.
“I am pro-Second Amendment and believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban,” Harris said said at the White House End of September.
Fulfilling that promise would come down to the makeup of Congress and overcoming the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for advancing legislation.
Promise: a rollback of Biden regulations
During a forum with the National Rifle Association in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in February, Trump pledged to roll back all gun regulations put in place by the Biden administration.
“Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be stopped in my first week back in office, perhaps my first day,” Trump said.
Trump specifically said he would cancel the Biden administration’s term “zero tolerance” policy, that revokes the federal licenses of gun dealers who violate firearms laws.
Brian Hughes, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said in a statement to States Newsroom that if Trump wins a second term, he will “end every single Harris-Biden attack on law-abiding gun owners in his first week in office and in office.” “We stand up for our constitutional right to bear arms.”
Promise: tax credits, no gun-free zones
During an NRA event in April 2023, Trump said he supported a tax credit for teachers who wanted to carry a firearm in schools.
Trump has also previously expressed his disapproval of schools being gun-free zones. Days after the Uvalde school shooting, Trump attended another NRA event in Houston, Texas, where he argued that a gun-free zone would not allow people to protect themselves.
“As the age-old saying goes, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Trump said. “The existence of evil is one of the best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens.”
He argued that schools should have metal detectors, fences and an armed police officer.
