Harris Ignores Free Speech, Gun Rights In Rant About Constitution

What politicians don’t say often matters just as much as what they do. Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated several amendments in the Bill of Rights but notably left out some others when she claimed her Republican opponent would “terminate” the Constitution.

On Thursday, Harris participated in a Univision town hall in Las Vegas, where she courted Hispanic voters in prime time, many of whom are obviously weary of authoritarianism under communist rule. Harris was answering a question about her party pushing President Joe Biden out of the way for her own candidacy when she launched into a hyperbolic tirade about how former President Donald Trump was thwarting her crusade for “democracy.”

“I am honored to have earned the Democratic nomination,” she said, several months after the DNC ousted Biden from the ticket and ensconced her as his replacement candidate without a challenge.

Trump on the other hand, she said, would “terminate the Constitution of the United States.”

“Imagine the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure by a government on you, the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment,” she said. Americans might be wondering about how the First and Second Amendments, which guarantee free speech and gun rights, will fare another administration that is built on censorship and hostile toward firearms.

“During the 2020 presidential campaign, Harris ran to the left of Biden on gun control,” author and gun expert John Lott wrote in The Federalist this summer. “While both supported an assault weapons ban, Harris wanted to force gun owners to sell to the government any firearms that she deemed undesirable. Harris went further than Biden in vowing to use executive orders if Congress did not pass the ban.”

Harris even went on to demand tighter gun laws in her first speech as the Democrat Party’s de facto nominee, calling for “universal background checks, Red Flag laws, and an assault weapons ban.”

On Saturday, X CEO Elon Musk predicted that if Harris wins, “this will be the last election.” The billionaire entrepreneur who bought Twitter in order to transform the company into a platform for free speech was likely referencing the consequences of the Biden-Harris administration’s continued censorship regime. The vast network of government programs that place federal pressure on allied tech corporations to suppress dissident speech was left in place by the Supreme Court last term. Rather than dismantle the administration’s power to coerce private companies into censorship, the high bench ruled the plaintiffs in the case did not have standing, and essentially kicked the issue down the road.

Harris’ vice-presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, explicitly endorsed government censorship in his debate with Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio. When Vance brought up the incumbent administration’s aggressive censorship campaigns, which were a clear assault on the Constitution’s guarantee to free speech, Walz interjected to claim there is no First Amendment right to “threatening or hate speech.” The Federalist’s Mark Hemingway pulled the transcript from the debate for a column last week, which is also pasted below:

J.D. Vance: The most sacred right under the United States democracy is the First Amendment. You yourself have said there’s no First Amendment right to misinformation. Kamala Harris wants to use …

Tim Walz: … [inaudible] threatening or hate speech …

J.D. Vance: … the power of government and Big Tech to silence people from speaking their minds. That is a threat to democracy that will long outlive this present political moment. I would like Democrats and Republicans to both reject censorship. Let’s persuade one another. Let’s argue about ideas, and then let’s come together afterwards.

Tim Walz: You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater. That’s the test. That’s the Supreme Court test.

J.D. Vance: Tim. Fire in a crowded theater? You guys wanted to kick people off of Facebook for saying that toddlers should not wear masks.

CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell: Senator, the governor does have the floor.

Tim Walz: Sorry.

In other words, “Walz challenged Vance on Trump’s questioning of the 2020 election results and Jan. 6, and Vance countered by saying that if Walz and his running mate, Kamala Harris, were so concerned about the fate of democracy they wouldn’t be so adamantly pro-censorship,” Hemingway wrote. “Specifically, Walz has previously said, quite incorrectly from any legal or moral standpoint, that there’s no First Amendment right to ‘misinformation.’”

So while Vice President Harris went on Univision to contrast herself with Trump and paint herself as a righteous crusader for the Constitution, Americans have good reason to be skeptical about which rights she is eager to protect. Harris didn’t need to list any amendments at all to make her hysterical point about Trump representing a supposed threat to democracy, but the ones she didn’t pick are telling when it comes to a candidate who has flipped her positions on major issues simply to advance her candidacy.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected]. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.