Senator Kamala Harris: ‘We must fight domestic terrorists and white supremacy’

On a warm September morning in 1963, 4 little black girls arrived at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Dressed in probably the most beautiful white dresses, they got here – as they do every Sunday – to check the Holy Bible and study joy, faith and love. But that morning, 4 children were murdered by a bomb planted within the basement by the Klu Klux Klan.

Nearly fifty-six years later, we mourn the tragedies in Gilroy, California, and El Paso, Texas, where white supremacy and domestic terrorism once more claimed innocent lives and injured communities.

As black women, we understand full well that violence motivated by hate and bigotry has at all times been present in our history. From the burning of Black Wall Street in 1921, to the Birmingham church bombing in 1963, to the Charleston church shooting in 2015 to the current day, Americans have been killed due to color of their skin for a lot too long.

We must have the courage to call it what it’s: domestic terrorism and a threat to our national security. But we also know that a part of our strength as a nation is that in our darkest moments we fight for the very best. I consider we face one in every of those moments now, and I’m able to fight as your president to guard Americans from the specter of domestic terrorism.

That’s why I propose that we keep the weapons of war out of the hands of those domestic terrorists and order federal law enforcement to crack down on violent hate.

First, because I’m uninterested in waiting for Congress to get its act together while Americans are being murdered, I’ll take executive motion to require online gun sales platforms like ArmsList.com to run background checks. For any domestic terrorist with a laptop, a loaded gun mustn’t be just a number of clicks away.

Second, I’ll dedicate $2 billion in federal funds to analyze, disrupt, and prosecute domestic terrorists through the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. By prioritizing domestic terrorism in these bodies, we’ll give you the option to more vigilantly monitor violent right-wing sites and forums, fund programs to counter hate violence, and, if mandatory, hold accountable those that commit these terrible crimes.

Third, I’ll prioritize laws that permits law enforcement to temporarily seize the weapons of a terrorist who may soon commit a hate crime. It would allow law enforcement agencies to use to a federal court for a domestic terrorism prevention order, which might give them the ability to focus on people posting threats of violence, anti-immigrant manifestos and other warning signs online.

Fourth, I’ll revise the mission of the National Counterterrorism Center to incorporate domestic terrorism in its mission, which is able to enable the agency to cooperate with other law enforcement agencies on these matters. Terrorism is terrorism – let’s treat it that way. NCTC has unique expertise within the radicalization process and subsequently brings key knowledge that will help us on this fight.

We could make real progress on this issue by electing a president who understands the history and seriousness of the domestic terrorism threat and is committed to taking motion.

Yet today we’ve a president who does more to fire up racial resentment than to confront it. While Trump didn’t pull the trigger in El Paso or Gilroy, he definitely tweeted concerning the ammunition. And when he cozies as much as white supremacists and winks at suggestions of violence against Black and brown communities, he poses a really real risk to our national security.

This will end once I turn into president.

I’ll at all times tell the reality concerning the scale of the threat. I’ll devote the resources mandatory to disarm hatred. And together we’ll create the America we consider in, where families can go to churches, schools, movies and shopping malls without fear for his or her lives.

Fighting against the evil of white supremacy and violence is how we honor Denise, Addie, Carole and Cynthia of Birmingham – and all those that have lost their lives to domestic terrorism. And even though it might not be easy, I do know that we’ll win this fight.