The party’s presidential hopefuls uniformly support curbs after doing so was long considered politically toxic.
By Matt Viser Matt Viser National political reporter Email Bio Follow April 10 at 1:43 PM Sen. Kamala D. Harris held a town hall meeting at Canyon Springs High School in Nevada, the site of a fatal shooting last year. Former congressman Beto O’Rourke carries a photo in his wallet of a victim of gun violence, and often recounts his 8-year-old’s story of hiding in a closet during an active-shooter drill. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has faced questions about gun control at nearly a dozen events.
“If their strategy involves trying to bring back Trump voters — voters from moderate to conservative areas — you probably don’t want the gun issue to get in the way,” said Robert J. Spitzer, who has written several books about gun politics. “You want to talk about health care or the economy or, from Democratic perspectives, uniting issues.”
Former congressman John Delaney also owns a gun. Perhaps most notably, so does Harris, a former prosecutor who, unlike the other gun owners in the race, has staked out a liberal identity rather than a centrist one. Many Democrats blamed losses in the 1994 midterm election and the 2000 presidential race largely on gun issues, and for years afterward were wary of supporting even modest gun control measures.
In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer won on a platform of universal background checks, banning bump stocks, and prohibiting gun possession for those guilty of violent crimes. “We’re in the same situation now as following Newtown, following Columbine — a lot of Sturm und Drang but no shift in the fundamental political dynamics,” he said. “Guns are, in many parts of the country, an animating issue that will fundamentally make a difference if they believe — and I don’t think they believed in 2018 — that their gun ownership rights are actually in danger.”
For now, the candidates are pressing ahead. Warren’s campaign asked for a member of a group called Moms Demand Action to introduce her in Nevada. Numerous candidates — including Buttigieg, Harris and Sen. Cory Booker — have asked for gun control activists to attend events.Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand earned an “A” rating from the NRA when she was a congresswoman representing a rural Upstate district. She told Newsday in 2009 that she stored two rifles under her bed.
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