Posts altered to misquote Harris spokesperson on gun ownership

"A Kamala staffer just went on CNN and said Kamala doesn't own a firearm. Kamala repeatedly lied about owning a gun. Make no mistake. Kamala will come for your guns. She lied about having one so you would believe her when she lied about not taking them away," says a September 21, 2024 X post by Libs of TikTok an account that AFP has previously fact-checked for spreading election and anti-LGBTQ disinformation.

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Screenshot of an X post taken September 24, 2024

The claim spread elsewhere on X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. It was also amplified on Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria" by contributor Liz Peek and anchor Maria Bartiromo on September 23.

During her September 10 televised presidential debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump, Harris pushed back against the former president's claim that her administration would confiscate Americans' firearms. "Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We're not taking anybody's guns away," she said. 

Harris further laid out her stance during a 90-minute campaign event moderated by talk show host Oprah Winfrey September 19.

"I'm not trying to take everyone's guns away," Harris said, once again identifying herself as a gun owner and adding that if someone breaks into her home, "they're getting shot."

However, the former prosecutor did call for a ban on high-powered assault weapons used in a string of school shootings. She supports universal background checks for all gun purchases and expanding red flag laws which generally allow the temporary removal of guns from a person deemed to be at risk of harming themselves or others.

The next day, in an interview on "CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta" Harris-Walz spokesperson Adrienne Elrod, reiterated that "She (Harris) supports strong responsible gun ownership, and she does own a firearm."

However, posts misquoting the spokesperson and accusing the Democrat of lying quickly followed.

Many of these claims include an accelerated video that contains erroneous auto-captions. However, the correct captions are reflected in the CNN transcript (archived here) and can be more easily distinguished in the unaltered version of the segment.

"This is a manipulated video and is not what aired on CNN. The transcript is correct," a network spokesperson confirmed in a September 24, 2024 email.

In the interview, Elrod adds that Harris "does believe that if you are a responsible gun owner in this country and you want to have a gun in your home to protect your families, and if you want to have a gun to go hunting with, you are certainly able to."

Ian Sams, senior spokesman for the Harris-Walz campaign, addressed the online claim in a statement shared on X (archived here).

"The definition of disinformation: video intentionally manipulated (artificially sped up to make the audio unclear) to mislead the viewer. Here's the actual clip, in which says plainly: "She supports strong, responsible gun ownership, and she does own a firearm," the September 21 post says.

Harris previously mentioned owning a gun during her 2020 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, CNN reported (archived here). In a 2015 interview with Politico, she described herself as a "good marksman" with a pistol (archived here).

More of AFP's reporting on misinformation about the 2024 election is available here.