Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, has found himself under fire for statements about his military service and stance on gun control. Walz, who served in the Army National Guard from 1981 until his retirement in 2005, has been criticized for claiming he wants to ban guns he “carried in war,” despite never seeing combat.
“I spent 25 years in the Army, and I hunt. I’ve been voting for commonsense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks. We can research the impacts of gun violence. We can make sure those weapons of war that I carried in war are only carried in war,” Walz said in a video posted by the Harris campaign on Tuesday.
Walz joined the Army National Guard in 1981 and retired from the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery in 2005, achieving the rank of command sergeant major. However, in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio in 2018, Walz acknowledged he never saw combat during his service. “I know that there are certainly folks that did far more than I did. I know that,” Walz said, adding, “I willingly say that I got far more out of the military than they got out of me, from the GI Bill to leadership opportunities to everything else.”
Walz retired just months after a warning order was issued to his battalion for deployment to Iraq. According to the New York Post, retired Command Sergeant Major Thomas Behrends took his place and criticized Walz as “a traitor” and “coward” for retiring before deployment. “When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle, not the other way,” Behrends told the New York Post. “He ran away. It’s sad.”
After retiring from the military, Walz ran for Congress, winning his race and being sworn into office in 2007. Despite never seeing combat, Walz trained with military weapons, specialized in heavy artillery, and was awarded ribbons for proficiency in sharpshooting and hand grenades, according to Minnesota Public Radio.
Critics on social media have slammed Walz and the Harris campaign for running a video snippet in which Walz calls for a ban on guns he allegedly “carried in war,” pointing out his admission of never seeing combat. Others have accused him of being inconsistent in his gun control stance, portraying himself as a gun advocate and hunter while supporting left-wing gun control legislation.
“Tim Walz is a political chameleon – changing his positions to further his own personal agenda,” said Randy Kozuch, chair of the NRA Political Victory Fund, in a statement. “In Congress, Walz purported to be a friend of gun owners to receive their support in his rural Minnesota district. Once he had his eyes set on other offices, he sold out law-abiding Minnesotans and promoted a radical gun control agenda that emboldened criminals and left everyday citizens defenseless. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz cannot be trusted to defend freedom and our Constitutional rights.”
After the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, Walz announced he would donate the approximately $18,000 he received from the NRA to charity. The following year, he joined fellow Democrats in calling for gun control measures, including banning so-called assault weapons.
As the 2024 election approaches, these controversies surrounding Walz’s military service and gun control stance are likely to remain points of contention.
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