WASHINGTON, Sept 26, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Kamala Harris packs a gun -- and wants Americans to know it.

"I'm a gun owner," the Democratic presidential candidate said last week in a forum hosted by television star Oprah Winfrey.

"If someone breaks in my house," she said with a chuckle "they're getting shot."

Harris has mentioned owning a firearm in the past, but she has mostly kept that quiet -- in line with her party's emphasis on curtailing access to guns in a country that has grown wearily used to armed crime and mass shootings.

The former longtime prosecutor also remains mum on exactly what kind of weapon she owns.

So her boldly pro-gun stance just a month and a half from the November 5 election surprised many -- including Winfrey.

"I probably shouldn't have said that," laughed Harris after her vow to shoot intruders at her California home.

Experts, however, say that the sitting vice president's revelation was no accident.

- Putting 'kibosh' on attacks -

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that Harris would try to take away Americans' guns in violation of the constitution's Second Amendment.

The billionaire former president has been endorsed by the powerful lobby group, the National Rifle Association.

Harris has not made any such threat. In line with most of her party, she only backs tightening of current laws -- for example requiring criminal and psychiatric background checks for all firearms' purchases.

Harris says she supports a ban on semi-automatic assault-style rifles, but no longer backs a mandatory buy-back program.

And when she jumped into the US election after President Joe Biden's late, shock exit, Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz -- an avid hunter and National Guard veteran -- for vice president.

"Kamala Harris wants to stop her opponents from branding her as anti-gun," said Joan Burbick, author of the book "Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy."

"The easiest way to do that is to announce she is a gun owner."

Steffen W. Schmidt, professor of political science at Iowa State University, added: "It's also very interesting she joked with Oprah that if anyone broke into her house she'd shoot the intruder. Democrats have been seen as soft on crime. This kind of puts the kibosh on that line of attack."

- Balancing act -

Harris faces a difficult balancing act.

About one-third of US adults and 40 percent of households own at least one firearm.

They reportedly include Trump, who according to US media owns three handguns. A concealed carry permit, however, was reportedly revoked by the New York Police Department after Trump was charged -- and convicted -- on 34 criminal counts for falsified business records.

Typically, gun owners are more than twice as likely to identify as Republican as opposed to Democrat.

But "these are tendencies, not absolutes," said Gregg Carter, professor emeritus of sociology at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

Many Americans are also eager for better controls on access to powerful weapons. A Pew poll showed that gun regulation is the seventh highest concern for voters in November.

Harris has the pro-controls voting block firmly in her camp already. The inroads she needs to make are on the other side.

"Because the election is so close this year -- all but a dead-even heat -- each party, each candidate, is trying to pull over a few more votes to its side whenever possible," Carter said.

Harris, who back in 2019 told reporters that she kept a firearm for "personal safety" while working as a prosecutor, thinks she'll be on target.

"I'm a good marksman," she once boasted.