As San Francisco’s district attorney, Kamala Harris made headlines in 2007 when she told legal gun owners that authorities could “walk into” their homes to inspect whether they were storing firearms properly, under a law she helped draft. During a press conference in May of that year,
Harris explained, “Just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn’t mean that we’re not going to walk into that home and check to see if you’re being responsible and safe.”
Now, legal gun owners across America are waiting to see if she would enact a federal law that allows police to enter any legal gun owner’s home at any time, to perform a gun safety inspection.
The legislation, which Harris played a key role in crafting, aimed to impose penalties on gun owners who failed to store their firearms safely at home.
The bill also included broader gun control measures, such as requiring gun distributors to submit an inventory to the police chief every six months and banning the possession of guns in public housing, even if they were legally owned.
The package of laws was introduced to San Francisco’s board of supervisors and signed into law by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom later that year.
