“I’m a gun owner; Tim Walz is a gun owner,” Harris said.

“I did not know that,” Winfrey replied.

“If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot,” Harris added. “Probably should not have said that. But my staff will deal with that later.”

The article has a video clip. I love the bullshit “probably…” It’s a 100% certainty she spoke with her staff and workshopped the phrasing and presentation of gun stuff. Plus I bet she practiced her lines. No American politician is going to wing it when talking about guns.

  • Vernon_Tennessee [null/void, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    3 hours ago

    I love how Harris is starting out with every advantage a candidate could possibly have and systematically blowing it.

    Trump too tbh. This election feels like both candidates are doing their damnedest to throw it for the other one because neither actually wants to be president right now lol.

    • Riffraffintheroom [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      Is she? These seem less like flubs than attempts to flank Trump from the right, like with her “I love fracking SOFUCKINGMUCH” but at the debate. Libs are gonna vote for her no matter what and leftists are demographically a non-factor so why wouldn’t she?

      • Roonerino [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        The true believer democrats that vote will vote for her, yes, but she needs a way to increase democrat voter turnout to actually win. She might have less charisma than Clinton, and I’m not confident that “Not Trump” is going to be enough now that Trump has been out of office for 4 years.

        We’ll find out soon enough, but I’m doubtful that this inauthentic pandering campaigning she’s doing is going to energize enough voters to win. Thanks to boomers and voter suppression and the electoral college every race is kind of the republicans’ to lose by default, so they can get away with a lot more stupid shit.

        • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          21 minutes ago

          The goal of the Democratic Party is to become the Republican Party, not to win elections.

          Let’s put it this way: the goal is to capture Republican donors, not to capture Republican voters. Two separate things.

      • FnordPrefect [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 hours ago

        Their compasses are like in Pirates of the Caribbean, they just point to whatever they want most. Which, regrettably, is just The Status Quo…or perhaps Brunch if they haven’t had one in a while

        • Roonerino [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          Be a pirate

          Whip out my magic compass

          I look to the horizon

          Roguish grin

          “Hoist the mainsail and set a course for Good Vibes!”

          The crew replies in unison

          “Yasssss queen! Slay!”

          The cargo hold is full of bombs for Israel

  • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    3 hours ago

    It’s so obviously performative when they each have a battalion of secret service on security detail. If they pulled a gun out and started wandering the halls of their houses, they are more likely to cause a friendly fire incident than stop an intruder

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    6 hours ago

    I’m not out of my mind for believing that this would have been unthinkable in the Hillary or even Biden era, right?

    Like this is just blatant blood-guzzling NRA chud pandering that would be completely relegated to Clinton body count and Dark Brandon type shit.

    • ComradeWizardmon [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      Unthinkable? I don’t think so.

      I think the main thing that’s becoming obvious in the past 8 years is that the Obama years were an illusion. He was politically progressive, sure, but what he was progressive towards was an increasingly brutal fascist empire, just like every one else.

      People who think the racists left the Democratic party with Reagan have been demonstrably proven wrong over, and over, and over since Clinton, they just never quite quit telling the lie.

      The presumption the Democrats are even mildly less racist because of their love of meritocracy, solely when rich citizens of the US are concerned, even with all those qualifiers it’s wrong. The Democrats are who they were when I was a kid here in Texoma - the people who wouldn’t vote for a Republican because they’re the party of the rich, the north, and cause of the Civil War (y’all should meet my papa sometime, it’d change how you see this country).

      I don’t really have a coherent way to distill the country as I see it compared to the constant pretense Democrats are different than the republicans in any fashion apart from the exact manner in which they’re vile condescending villains, but the sooner the left stops talking about progressives like that’s something anyone should be, the better. CAuse they sure as hell ain’t what you think they are, I don’t care if they kinda-sorta-maybe-implied they might be okay with an anti-racist policy sometime far in the future. Besides which, Liberals are conservatives now, in the literal sense. They are the reactionary party. Fascism isn’t a reaction to Capital in crisis - it’s a revolutionary expansionist project. What people mean by fascism when they call it reactionary is just when fascism starts killing white people. Fascism is real long, long before then.

      What scares me lately is, since Biden, the Blue MAGA insurgency in the Democrats are going ham as well. I don’t really think America needs a conservative party, but we’re about to have two revolutionary parties, both worse than the present. Hell, maybe we already do and it’s just hard to tell how much it’s changed while the changes are still happening.

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      6 hours ago

      This would have been unthinkable in the Hillary or even Biden era, right?

      I think so too. But Biden’s like ancient history now. Libs must love Kamala’s gun comment and think it’s a “pragmatic” move by her to appeal to republicans and republicans in swing states in particular.

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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        6 hours ago

        The identity politics angle must also be a part of it, I think.

        Actual segregationist Joe Biden couldn’t really get away with betting on this kind of rhetoric, but Kamala being both non-white and a woman gets into the gray zone where she has plausible deniability of not just directly appealing to the vivid fantasies of legal murder demographic.

        • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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          Biden couldn’t really get away with betting on this kind of rhetoric… Kamala being both non-white and a woman gets into the gray zone

          -–

          Edit 1

          I agree. But imagine an alternate universe where Biden’s VP was a white guy. After Biden dropped out even that VP could use Death Wish-style messaging and get away with it. The lib Overton window keeps on lurching more and more to the right and the libs are fine with it.

          Edit 2

          My comment turned into total mess so I started all over again.

  • Wertheimer [any]@hexbear.net
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    6 hours ago

    ‘They’re Getting Shot,’ Kamala Harris Warns Home Intruders, Burglars, Litterbugs, Slow Walkers

    FARMINGTON HILLS, MI—Discussing the Second Amendment with Oprah Winfrey at a Michigan town hall last night, Vice President Kamala Harris admitted she may have gotten too comfortable when she remarked that any home intruders, burglars, litterbugs, or slow walkers near her house could expect to be shot. “If somebody breaks into my house, knocks on my door to sell me something, or leaves their dog’s waste on my lawn, they’re getting shot,” the Democratic presidential nominee said in an attempt to bridge the gap with conservative gun owners in the swing state, drawing applause as she pantomimed looking through a rifle scope at the audience and then mimicked the sound of gunfire. “If you trespass onto my property or take my plate away from the table before I’m finished eating, I’m going to take you out, as is my right as an American citizen. Let this serve as a warning to anyone who steals my mail, runs down the airplane aisle to deboard before it’s their turn, or talks too loudly in a movie theater—these things upset me, and I’m not afraid to defend myself accordingly. Also goes for drivers who don’t signal, heavy mouth-breathers, or if I just don’t like your face. Boom.” Later in the interview, Harris drew a gun from inside her jacket and fired a warning shot into the air after someone in the audience answered a call on speakerphone.

  • LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA [he/him]@hexbear.netM
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    Definitely a weird way to pander to the right, but whatever.

    The thing is, I can sort of agree? If someone breaks into my home at night while I am asleep, I’m not going to stop and ask questions about their intentions. I will assume they are here to do me and mine harm, and I will react accordingly, which very likely means shooting them. Breaking into someone’s home at 3am is very different from trying to rifle through the shit in their car. But fantasizing about it on Oprah is fucking crazy, even for a politician.

    • SpiderFarmer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 hours ago

      Yeah, preparing to react with violence if some stranger comes into your home unannounced is not the crazy thing a lot of leftists like to claim it is. Desiring safety and security in you living space is a basic animal instinct. But I’d rather just the person get scared and run, since I’m not exactly willing to kill someone over my pc.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        18 minutes ago

        Killing in self-defense isn’t a bizarre reaction, but hanging on discussing such scenarios, bringing them up unnecessarily, fantasizing about them, these are pathological behaviors that suggest using the extremity of the situation as a moral pretext for getting off on murdering someone (especially a dirty poor)

        • SpiderFarmer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Oh, no disagreement there. I ain’t fantasizing that, nor is that a worry for most folks, even those living in rougher sides of town. The only people wanting to do any killing are these rich fucks.

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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        Just because it’s “not crazy” and based in some basic animal instinct doesn’t mean we have to entertain it or that it’s not something that extremely easily leads to reactionary violence.

        We literally the slope this leads down in people gunning down strangers at the door bell or literally in the drive in just approaching the house.

    • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 hours ago

      Or you can be like Breonna Taylor and end up riddled with bullets because it turns out it’s not a burglar, it’s the police doing a no-knock raid.

    • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      Yeah no. Let them take whatever and be done with it. Killing someone over objects is absolute chuddery. Take your family into one room and guard the door with your gun pointed at it, announce you are armed, and wait for them to leave. We don’t give the death penalty for stealing a TV from Walmart. Why should that change when the TV gets moved to your house?

      Very, very few burglaries are done by serial killers. Most burglars aren’t even armed. You’re more likely to accidentally shoot a bystander in the dark than you are to shoot Ted Bundy.

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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        Take your family into one room and guard the door with your gun pointed at it, announce you are armed, and wait for them to leave.

        The strongest doors in your house are the exterior doors. Those are the doors I’m going to be behind.

        Anyone willing to come through the tough exterior doors into an occupied structure can be reasonably presumed to be willing to go through a cardboard-thin interior door into an occupied room.

        Waiting for them to break down the door demonstrates I value their lives much more than they do. I’m not giving up the most defensible position in my own home to doubly prove that fact.

        • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          27 minutes ago

          What kind of moron charges a door when they know there’s people with a guns behind it? All for the sake of stealing a laptop or jewelry? You’re just trying to create scenarios where you get to shoot someone lmao

          • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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            What kind of moron charges a door when they know there’s people with a guns behind it?

            Exactly. Why are they assuming there are no guns behind the heavy front door, and the only guns are behind the thin bedroom doors? What kind of moron do they have to be?

            You’re just trying to create scenarios where you get to shoot someone lmao

            The scenario I “created” is functionally identical to the scenario the parent comment created. I simply clarified that relying on a weak interior door is monumentally stupid when a tough exterior door is available. You know it, I know it, everyone reading along knows it.

      • Roonerino [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        4 hours ago

        I was raised by gun people and brain poisoned from a very young age and now, years later, I still have to consciously remind my brain sometimes that my phone or laptop isn’t worth more than someone’s life.

        I hate that growing up in this country made my default state a violent, terrified, antisocial mess that needed hard work to change into something resembling a normal human.

      • AmericaDeserved711 [any]@hexbear.net
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        4 hours ago

        Very few burglaries are done in the middle of the night while the residents are home. Unless the burglar is very stupid they’re gonna burgle when everyone’s at work or on vacation etc. So in the extremely rare case that someone does break in at 3AM while you’re sleeping, I wouldn’t necessarily assume it’s definitely a robbery.

        This isn’t to defend Kamala, I hate people who fantasize about implausible scenarios where they get to lawfully shoot somebody. A security system would likely deter any home invader regardless of their intentions.

        • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          3 hours ago

          Very few burglaries are done in the middle of the night while the residents are home. Unless the burglar is very stupid they’re gonna burgle when everyone’s at work or on vacation etc.

          A security system would likely deter any home invader regardless of their intentions.

          Also true. Which is why you should do things that discourage people from burglarizing your home that don’t involve anyone getting shot. I guess my point is you’re more likely to accidentally shoot one of your own family members during a home invasion than you are to experience some The Strangers/Funny Games/Purge-type shit. People vastly overestimate their abilities using firearms or what they’d do in a gunfight. A lot of home invasion stuff comes off as fantasies to kill people or overly emotional fear responses. People don’t learn to let go of their egos and control their emotions in stressful situations.

      • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        4 hours ago

        “take what you want and leave” just generously assumes that what they want isn’t to hurt you

        Why should that change when the TV gets moved to your house

        Stores have insurance for shit, how many people have “burglar coverage”? Most people don’t have infinite wealth to just let walk out their front door

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          9 minutes ago

          “take what you want and leave” just generously assumes that what they want isn’t to hurt you

          It’s not generous to assume what is easily the most plausible interpretation. Unless it’s like a gang hit or something (including by cops), who the fuck wants to brutalize an entire family? That happened one time in Cheshire, CT and conservatives the whole country over have been milking it for a decade and a half.

          how many people have “burglar coverage”?

          lol

        • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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          Literally every homeowner in the US that hasn’t paid off their home (read: most of them) have homeowners insurance, which has theft and burglary provisions. A good many have renters insurance, too.

        • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          You’re still putting a price tag on another human. No, you do not have infinite money and people shouldn’t steal from you. But is $500 worth more than a person? $100,000? $25,000? 25$? Fifty cents? The answer is “no.” Killing people for burglary is reactionary. That type of behavior is what the bourgeois do. They decide people aren’t worth some dollar amount and either let them die or actively kill them.

          • Abracadaniel [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            3 hours ago

            burglars typically get the fuck out if they learn someone is home, if they stick around after a warning they’re far more likely to be dangerous.

          • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            idk if someone is going to do harm to me, I don’t care about the sanctity of their life

            The only difference between the bourgeois exploiting me and some shithead stealing from me is one is a class traitor

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              Comrade Beanis here made it explicitly clear that shooting someone in defense of your and your family’s actual safety is legitimate. That’s the whole point of the “point the gun at the door” thing.

              • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                the thing is yall don’t consider taking my shit to be doing harm to me, someone living paycheck to paycheck who would never be able to replace any of it in a reasonable time frame, and you’re fucking wrong shrug-outta-hecks like are you really so incapable of conceiving “harm” to a person beyond just bodily harm? Like if I come steal all your fucking food and you starve to death, it’s fine because I didn’t assault you? Literally fucking social murder, but it’s fine because uhhhh burglary is cool and good? Christ in fucking heaven, stop arguing with me about this

              • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                “Stealing my shit” is doing me harm because I am a poor person who can’t just magic a new life out of nothing. I have no fucking sympathy for anyone who tries to steal from me, sorry. And idk but i’m not going to trust renters insurance to just go “oh, someone stole all your shit? here’s the full value of it” 🤷‍♂️

        • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          5 hours ago

          And how many burglaries involve an armed intruder who opens fire on someone the moment they hear them? “Take what you want and leave” is going to de-escalate 99.99999% of home invasions.

          • Lurker123 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            3 hours ago

            I think you are confusing yourself by thinking of a typical burglary - I.e. a burglary where the burglar has done what they can to make sure people aren’t home (e.g. struck during work hours, saw the mail piling up and came when the person was on vacation, etc.)

            But that’s not the situation being contemplated here. The OP specified a nighttime break in. This is the opposite of your standard burglar - they’ve struck when people are the MOST likely to be home.

            Of this subset, what percentage have doing something bad to you in mind? Or more to the point, at what % are you morally obligated to not take actions against them? Let’s say 49% of the time does the nighttime breakin burglar actually intend you physical harm. Do you have to eat it at those numbers? (I’m asking genuinely, since you seem to have a strong moral intuition here. From your other post, you said you couldn’t put a value on human life, so the only other value I have here is the resident’s life. In the 49/51 example, since it’s more likely than not that there’s no harm intended, this maximizes the amount of lives).

            • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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              But we’re not arguing about homicide by magic spell here, this is a pretty specific and extremely spotlighted type of crime, the only reason to conjure coinflip percentages out of thin air is to entice specific sentiment, fascist sentiment in this case.

    • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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      6 hours ago

      Is this a potential eventuality you should be preparing for, though?

      Is it a rational thing to fear based on evidence, or is it driven by reactionary fearmongering?

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        4 hours ago

        I’m sure it happens more often than never, but the level of fear Americans have about it is almost definitely rooted in that “savages coming for your women” white settler shit.

    • anarcho_blinkenist [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      In younger days I’ve been that drunk man (well didn’t enter the home but definitely tried loudly to open the door for a minute not realizing the street I was on); Makes me proud to be an American that the current VP and Democrat candidate for the President of the United States of America might have shot me dead that day to raucous applause of Oprah-watchers.