Kamala Harris Supports Mandatory Buyback of Assault Weapons

(Bloomberg) -- Kamala Harris said Friday she supports a mandatory buyback of military-style assault weapons, taking a more aggressive position than her main rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“I think it’s a good idea,” she told reporters after a campaign event in Londonderry, New Hampshire.

“We have to work out the details -- there are a lot of details -- but I do” support a forced buyback, Harris said when asked about the policy. “We have to take those guns off the streets.”

Harris’s higher-polling rivals Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren back banning sales of semi-automatic rifles like those used in recent mass shootings but stop short of calling for a forced buyback of guns already owned. Beto O’Rourke has said he would require owners of such weapons to sell them to the government.

A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 49% of Americans oppose a mandatory buyback of assault weapons while 46% favor the idea. But among Democrats, 71% support the idea while just 23% are against it.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Joe Sobczyk

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