By Larry Keane

The 2024 presidential election will be decided in just 34 days on Nov. 5 and gun owners and Second Amendment supporters will prove to have played a critical role in deciding who will lead the country for the next four years.

Since the last presidential election in 2020, there are now more than 22.3 million new first-time gun owners—i.e., individuals who were driven by factors around them to go to the gun retail counter and lawfully purchase a firearm for the first time. In the key swing states that will determine by just a few thousand votes either way who wins the White House election there still remain millions of hunters and pro-Second Amendment Americans who aren’t registered to vote and could remain at home.

Against that backdrop, Republican Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz faced off in the campaign’s only vice presidential debate. Fortunately, for Americans who remain concerned about crime and their constitutional rights to purchase and possess firearms for lawful purpose there was a fairly robust discussion on those topics.

Criminals Don’t Follow the Law

CBS News moderator Norah O’Donnell noted that Sen. Vance opposed so-called “red flag” laws and bans on Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs), the most popular-selling centerfire rifle in America. She asked Sen. Vance about parents being held legally responsible for criminal acts committed by their children. She raised as an example the prosecution of the Michigan parents who were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for supplying a firearm to their child who committed a horrific mass shooting. Sen. Vance said he did not know the facts of the case but said he trusted local law enforcement to make those prosecutorial decisions. He noted that details matter and contrasted the situation where a child stole the firearm to parents who hand over a gun knowing their child could be dangerous.  

Sen. Vance then turned to the most significant driver of criminal firearm violence in America – it is not law-abiding gun owners, but criminals.

“But here’s something that really bothers me about this epidemic of violence,” the senator began. “The gross majority – close to 90 percent in some of the statistics I’ve seen – of the gun violence in this country is committed with illegally obtained firearms. And while we’re on that topic, thanks to Kamala Harris’s open border policies, we’ve seen a massive influx in illegal guns run by the Mexican drug cartels. The amount of illegal guns in our country today is higher today than it was three and a half years ago.”

That salient point is ignored or forgotten by those who continue to push more gun control restrictions on law-abiding Americans as a flawed approach to reduce the criminal misuse of firearms – something all Americans agree should be lower. Criminals do not follow the laws. It was a topic that Vice President Harris was finally pressed on during a recent interview at the National Association of Black Journalists. Her usual kitchen sink gun control approach was questioned given that criminals don’t follow the laws already in place.

The amount of illegal guns in our country today is higher today than it was three and a half years ago. – sen. jD vance

Last night, Sen. Vance stressed the need for stronger security measures at schools and having enough school resource officers. He touched on the importance of addressing the unique mental health challenges facing Americans. The senator also voiced support for police in the country’s largest cities where the largest percentages of gun crimes are perpetrated.

“This is why we have to empower law enforcement to arrest the bad guys and put them away and take gun offenders off the street,” Sen. Vance said.

Returning to his initial point, the senator summed it up. “The idea that we can wave a magic wand and take guns out of the hands of bad guys, it just doesn’t fit with recent experiences.”

More of the Same

Gov. Walz is campaigning as the number two on a ticket that could be even more antigun and anti-Second Amendment rights than the current Biden-Harris administration that carries that distinction now. Vice President Harris has a long and very public record of supporting some of the most extreme gun control proposals, including bans on entire classes of commonly-owned firearms, mandatory gun confiscation schemes, an outright prohibition on civilian handgun ownership and even supporting law enforcement to unconstitutionally enter and search the homes of private citizens to check on their firearm storage methods.

During the debate, Gov. Walz attempted to mask his and Vice President Harris’s gun control ambitions by deploying the tired “I’m a gun owner, but…” tactic.

“Sometimes I think what we end up doing is looking for a scapegoat. Sometimes it’s just the guns. It’s just the guns.” – Gov. tim walz

“Look, I’m a hunter. I own firearms. The vice president is,” Gov. Walz stated. “We understand the Second Amendment is there… There are reasonable things we can do to make a difference. It’s not infringing on your Second Amendment. And the idea to have some of these weapons out there, it just doesn’t make any sense.”

The governor was obviously referencing MSRs, or AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The Biden-Harris administration has called for implementing a new MSR ban since Day 1 of the administration. During the Democratic primary in 2019, then Sen.-Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) went so far as to say she supported and would implement a mandatory “buy back” of MSRs. That’s gun confiscation and unconstitutional.

She’s since walked back those calls but has also declared during this current campaign that her “values haven’t changed.”

The walk back on gun confiscation was a common theme and O’Donnell asked the governor about his flip flop, too.

“Governor Walz, you previously opposed an assault weapons ban but only later in your political career did you change your position. Why?” O’Donnell asked.

“Look the NRA. I was an NRA guy for a long time…” the governor said. “Sometimes I think what we end up doing is looking for a scapegoat. Sometimes it’s just the guns. It’s just the guns.” Gov. Walz’s statement stood in stark contrast to Sen. Vance’s statement that the focus needs to be on the actions of criminals not inanimate objects and enforcing the gun laws already on the books.

One positive development from the back-and-forth is that the candidates agreed it was a good start to a conversation about reducing firearm tragedies. The problem, though, is that the top of one of the tickets will respect Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans and address criminals illegally obtaining and using firearms to commit heinous acts. The top of the other ticket has a concrete track record of ignoring Constitutional rights, attacking the lawful firearm industry and rejecting any solutions that don’t involve gun confiscation.