Vice President Kamala Harris called out members of Congress for their “pitiful” response to gun violence following over 160 mass shootings this year including one that killed four and injured 28 others at an Alabama birthday party last week. (You can watch her remarks below)
Harris pleaded for “reasonable gun safety laws” during remarks in New York City last week and, in a Thursday appearance on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” questioned why lawmakers don’t “have the courage to stand up to the gun lobby” and the National Rifle Association.
“I just think it is pitiful that the people in the United States Congress do not have the courage to stand up to the gun lobby, stand up to the NRA and say, ‘Look, I support Second Amendment but we need reasonable gun safety laws,’” Harris said.
Harris’ remarks took place during an interview with Jennifer Hudson, whose mother Darnell Donerson and brother Jason Hudson were found shot and killed inside Donerson’s home in 2008.
The singer’s seven-year-old nephew Julian King was also reported missing and, three days later, was found dead from gunshot wounds in a car. William Balfour, her sister’s estranged husband, was convicted on three counts of murder in 2012 and is serving life in prison.
Harris, elsewhere in the interview, slammed the presentation of a “false choice” between the Second Amendment and gun safety laws.
“The point is to say it is reasonable that we would have background checks because it is reasonable that you might want to know if someone has been found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others before they can buy a gun,” she said.
“It’s just reasonable. It’s just reasonable. It is reasonable to say that weapons of war have no place on the streets of America and by that, I mean assault weapons.”
12,800 people have died as a result of gun violence in the U.S. in a year marked by 166 mass shootings, a number more than the amount of days in 2023, according to data from Gun Violence Archive.