Kamala Harris wants voters to know she owns a Glock

• Kamala Harris just told voters what kind of gun she owns.
• During a “60 Minutes” interview, she said she owns a Glock, a polymer-framed pistol with a short recoil.
• Experts told BI that Harris may be making a strategic move by talking about being a gun owner.

Vice President Kamala Harris wants voters to know she is a responsible Glock owner.

In an interview with CBS' “60 Minutes” that aired Monday, CBS anchor Bill Whitaker asked Harris about her recent comments about gun ownership and asked her what gun she owned.

“I have a Glock and have for a while,” Harris said.

“Listen, Bill, my background is in law enforcement, so here we go,” she added.

Whitaker asked if she ever fired.

“Yes, of course I did, at a shooting range,” she said.

Glock is a brand of short-recoil-operated polymer-framed pistols from the Austrian manufacturer Glock Ges.mbH. The gun brand promotes the Glock 22 as “by far the most popular police service pistol in the United States.”

This openness about firearms could be a campaign strategy to raise eyebrows in swing states, political and communications experts told BI — and it could help fend off potential Republican attacks.

Gun ownership is also widespread in the USA. In a June 2023 Pew Research Center survey of more than 5,000 U.S. adults, 32% of respondents said they owned a gun.

Harris also mentioned that she owns a gun during a live-streamed interview with Oprah Winfrey in September.

And in 2019, Harris said she carried a gun for safety reasons.

Although she owns a gun, Harris has been an advocate for safer firearm use and stricter gun ownership laws.

She heads the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which President Joe Biden created in 2023 to ensure stricter background checks and create new criminal penalties for illegal gun possession.

Harris' running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, is a gun owner and hunter.

Trump has shown an interest in weapons.

Trump went to in September at a South Carolina gun store where he was seen posing for photos and admiring a pistol.

“I want to buy one,” Trump said in the video.

In early June, the NYPD attempted to revoke Trump's license to carry a concealed weapon after he was convicted of 34 felonies in his hush-money trial in New York.

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Experts: Harris' comments on guns are unexpected

Kristin Doidge, a public relations lecturer at Loyola Marymount University, told BI that voters – particularly younger ones – are watching both presidential candidates and are committed to understanding their policy positions.

“Harris' comments on gun ownership definitely seem unexpected, especially to voters here in California,” Doidge said.

But gun talks could help sway Harris, particularly among undecided voters, Doidge said. But issues like the economy remain top of mind for voters, she added.

Other experts said becoming a gun owner could be a smart move by Harris' campaign, particularly for swing-state voters.

“It may also be strategically important to remind voters that Kamala Harris, as a former attorney general, is the law and order nominee,” said Georgia Kernell, an associate professor of communications and political science at UCLA.

Guns are an important part of the political narrative

Jonathan Aronson, a professor of communications and international relations at USC, said it was “reasonable” for former prosecutor Harris to own a gun and talk about it.

“I suspect the reason she brought it up was to blunt a possible attack from Trump that she was anti-police and soft on crime,” Aronson said of Harris.

Guns and the Second Amendment have become central to the Trump campaign's messaging.

In May, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee announced the formation of “Gun Owners for Trump,” a coalition supporting the Second Amendment.

And one of his strongest backers, billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, has promised to pay $47 to people who entice voters in swing states to sign a petition expressing support for the First and Second Amendments.

Representatives for Harris did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside of business hours.