Kamala Harris has a gun in her home, but guns don’t make us safer

At a campaign event in Michigan, Vice President Kamala Harris told supporters: “If someone breaks into my house, they will be shot. » In the weeks that followed, she spoke more about her gun ownership. His campaign amplified the message, turning a quote about his Glock into a trending sound on TikTok.

The vice president is one of many Americans who own a gun for self-defense. According to Pew, 7 in 10 gun owners in the United States cite “protection” as the primary reason they own a gun. But the idea that guns make us safer is a myth.

Decades of research clearly show that carrying and owning firearms increases the risk of death and injury. At the household level, the risk of suicide increases significantly, both for children and adults living in households with firearms. Having a gun in the home also doubles the risk of dying from homicide. Communities that own more guns experience more gun violence, not less.

For Gen Z, it’s not a distant threat. It’s something that has had a profound impact on our lives. According to a survey conducted by Project Unloaded, approximately 30% of young people have been directly victims of gun violence. The crisis is particularly traumatic for young black and Latino people. Sixty percent of us have survived gun violence or know someone who has. Worrying about being shot or losing a loved one to gun violence is a daily experience for many American teenagers.

I do not question the Vice President’s commitment to resolving this crisis. While the Trump campaign dismissed school shootings as a “fact of life” and suggested stronger doors were one of our best ways to stop them, the Harris-Walz campaign is focusing on survivors gun violence and advocates for solutions such as community funding. violence intervention work that would undoubtedly improve people’s safety.

But Gov. Tim Walz was right when he said during the vice presidential debate, “Sometimes it’s just the guns.” » If we all understand that guns are the problem, then we should not participate in normalizing gun ownership or use, especially when the research is so overwhelming that guns make us less safe.

Guns rarely prevent violent crime. And too often, attempts to respond to a threat with firepower have deadly or life-altering consequences, especially for young people. In 2023, a teenager from Missouri went looking for his younger brothers and knocked on the wrong door. The owner, a gun owner, shot him in the head, then told police he felt threatened. (Andrew Lester, the owner, is currently awaiting trial on charges of felonious assault and criminal action.) A few days later, a similar incident occurred in rural New York: a 20-year-old woman was shot and killed when her boyfriend accidentally pulled into the wrong driveway and the owner considered them a threat.