Kamala Harris wants to use executive action for gun control if she is elected president

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said that if she is elected president, she will give Congress 100 days to act on gun control. If they don't, she'll take matters into her own hands, she said during a CNN town hall Monday.

Harris supports universal background checks and an assault weapons ban, and told the audience she will use her executive power to take action on gun control if Congress doesn't pass the laws she wants.

"Upon being elected, I will give the United States Congress 100 days to get their act together and have the courage to pass reasonable gun safety laws," Harris said. "And if they fail to do it, then I will take executive action."

Harris said it was a "false choice" that leads people to believe there is no middle ground between respecting the Second Amendment and taking away people's guns for no good reason.

"There are people in Washington, D.C., supposed leaders, who have failed to have the courage to reject a false choice which suggests you're either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone's guns away. We need reasonable gun safety laws in this country, starting with universal background checks and a renewal of the assault weapon ban, but they have failed to have the courage to act."

Harris has said she herself is a gun owner.

"I am a gun owner and I own a gun for probably the reason that a lot of people do, for personal safety," she told reporters in Iowa earlier this month.