NRA-ILA | Walz as Harris VP Pick Continues to Have Problems

We talked last week about one of the problems newly-minted VP candidate Tim Walz (D) had been facing.  Whether it is considered “stolen valor” for Walz to have implied he served in an active combat zone when he did not is a hotly debated topic these days.  Our problem with Walz, though, is the idea that he is any sort of an expert to be listened to when determining what firearms the government should prohibit law-abiding citizens from owning.

The positions Walz has taken on firearms has clearly been guided by his political aspirations, not any expertise or experience he may try to claim to have.

As we pointed out, the firearms Walz may have carried while serving in the National Guard are qualitatively different from the semi-automatic firearms he, his running mate, Joe Biden, and other anti-gun extremists have been trying to ban ever since the ’94 semi-auto ban expired, by design, in 2004.

Again, we covered that issue in detail last week, but this week, we’d like to discuss an often overlooked matter that was also brought to light in the video posted by the Kamala HQ account on X (formerly Twitter).

Not only does Walz want to ban tens-of-millions of semi-automatic firearms like the AR-15, but he apparently wants to prohibit law-abiding gun owners from carrying firearms outside of the states in which they reside.

In the video, Walz claims he has voted to “protect the Second Amendment,” then runs down a list of anti-Second Amendment proposals he supports (like banning guns), including stating, “We can make sure we don’t have reciprocal carry among states….”

Now, we presume his opposition to “reciprocal carry among states” refers to states recognizing the permits to carry firearms issued by other states.  As most readers know, NRA has worked for decades to help pass legislation at the state level to ensure each state recognizes carry permits issued by other states.  But some states make it nearly impossible when it comes to passing legislation that advances the rights protected under the Second Amendment.

Think California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.

Because some states are held under the control of anti-gun politicians, we have also been working for decades to pass a federal law establishing a national reciprocity standard that would ensure the right to self-defense does not simply cease to exist when one crosses the border of certain states.

So what does Walz mean when he says he wants to “make sure we don’t have reciprocal carry among states”?  Is he opposed to a national standard, or does he want to end all reciprocal agreements?

Is this part of his evolution from someone who used to actually support the Second Amendment with his votes early in his tenure in Congress—when he represented a rural district that supported our right to keep and bear arms—to an ambitious politician more concerned with how he could advance his political career?

Back in 2011, Representative Walz voted for the “National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011.”  Six years later, after he had already announced he would be running to be governor, he voted against the “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017.”  That was likely the price he gladly paid to receive the blessing of anti-gun extremists that help decide the fate of statewide candidates in Minnesota.

Now, he appears to not just oppose a national standard for reciprocity, but he seems to want to prohibit ALL reciprocity agreements, although that is unclear.  Whether or not this represents a policy position of the Harris-Walz campaign is also unclear.  Harris had been the presumed Democrat candidate for nearly a month, and as of last Friday, she still had not posted a single policy position on her campaign website.  With fewer than 90 days before election day—even fewer before early voting starts—all we have heard from Harris-Walz are vague references to possible policies during campaign rallies.

Combine the delay with posting detailed policy positions with the fact that Harris has yet to face any real scrutiny from the media—she has yet to hold a press conference or take any meaningful questions from reporters—and one might be inclined to believe that the Harris-Walz ticket is trying to hide much of its agenda for as long as possible in order to fool voters into believing it would not be the most extreme anti-Second Amendment administration we’ve ever seen.

While Biden-Harris currently holds the title of most anti-gun administration ever, Harris-Walz appears to be looking to steal the crown.

We know that Harris, when she ran for the Democrat nomination for president for 2020 (although she dropped out in 2019, after failing to gain any traction and before a single primary was held), tried to out-anti-gun the field by promising to enact not just a ban on semi-automatics, but also a confiscation scheme that she tried to sell as a “mandatory buy-back.”  We also know that Harris is now trying to distance herself from that position that even anti-gun radicals seem to think goes too far…at least to admit publicly.

We don’t believe her, and neither should you.

Will Walz also try to distance himself from an equally radical position of wanting to eliminate reciprocity agreements on carry permits?  Or will he try to claim that he misspoke; an excuse his handlers and supporters have tried to use to explain away his comment implying he served in a combat zone.

Election Day 2024 may seem right around the corner, but there is still plenty of time to expose just how extreme the Democrat ticket is when it comes to wanting to eradicate the Second Amendment.  We look forward to making regular updates on this front, and hope the Harris-Walz campaign continues to be so generous with all the material they have been providing.