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Adam Winkler: Banning "Assault Rifles" Counterproductive
Gun Watch ^ | 11 October, 2016 | Dean Weingarten

Posted on 10/18/2016 4:45:00 AM PDT by marktwain



Adam Winkler is a law professor at UCLA.  He has been reliably for imposing additional gun control laws, but is more "moderate" than many academics on the left.  He has more intellectual honesty than most, and has fairly described the racist roots of gun control in the United States.

It is interesting to note that Winkler has been writing about the futility of "assault rifle" bans as early as February of 2015. From the latimes.com:
There are approaches to gun control, such as universal background checks and cracking down on rogue gun dealers, that can reduce the daily death toll from guns. It may seem like a victory for the forces of good to ban assault weapons, but such laws aren't the answer. Assault weapon bans are bad policy and bad politics.
 Winkler reiterated his logical opposition to "assault  rifle" bans only a week ago. He was answering an interview question about Hillary Clinton's police positions. From an Oct. 2016 Interview at vice.com:
Another thing she wants to do is ban "assault rifles," but there's a debate about whether the old assault rifle ban, which expired in 2004, did much good. What do you think of that?

My own view is that there's no way to make assault rifle bans effective. It's an ineffective law, it's an ineffective goal, it's an ineffective policy that's mostly about symbolism and not about substance. The truth is assault weapons are used very infrequently in crimes. I think there is a grand total of about 300 people a year who die from rifles of any sort––assault or otherwise.
 In April of this year, Winkler penned an editorial against imposing a ban on standard capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.  From latimes.com:
Americans have tried over and over to outlaw things that some insist are objectionable and others enjoy. Prohibition was repealed when its supporters realized that the disobeyed laws against alcohol brought the whole legal system into disrepute. The war on drugs is widely recognized as an abject failure. We haven't even been able to stop music file-sharing, which despite a 10-year effort by the recording industry is as popular as ever.

Like alcohol, drugs and file-sharing, guns — including the ones with large magazines — are here to stay. Gun policy is going to be more effective when we stop fighting against that simple fact.
Winkler is operating from pragmatism instead of principle, but that brings him to policy decisions that work to uphold a good bit of the Second Amendment.

I would like to read what his opinion is on gun registration.  It does not seem to have any benefit except to facilitate gun confiscation, either in mass, or incrementally.

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Link to Gun Watch


TOPICS: Government; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: adamwinkler; assaultweapons; banglist; magazines
If we can get him to understand that gun registration is counterproductive, it would be helpful.
1 posted on 10/18/2016 4:45:00 AM PDT by marktwain
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To: marktwain

But what about handguns, bolt action rifles with magazines, etc? The question should always be what is next?


2 posted on 10/18/2016 4:49:41 AM PDT by Morpheus2009
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To: marktwain

Counterproductive?
NY banned them.
4% compliance rate.

Not a good sign when otherwise law abiding citizens would rather be felons than comply.


3 posted on 10/18/2016 5:03:44 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ("If anyone will not listen to your words, shake the dust from your feet and leave them." - Jesus)
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To: marktwain

I am guessing that this man thinks that people outside of his clique are basically fungible, but deep down inside he has those nagging doubts. So import a new group of people who have no respect for the laws and you end up with Third World LA, and while he sits atop and helps rule that mess, everyday that mess moves closer to his little West LA sanctuary.


4 posted on 10/18/2016 5:07:18 AM PDT by junta ("Peace is a racket", testimony from crime boss Barrack Hussein Obama.)
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To: marktwain

There is no assault weapon problem in America. The assault weapon issue is complete bull***t fabricated by left wing journalists and politicians with ulterior motives.

It's worth mentioning that the graph doesn't even differentiate between rifles that would be considered "assault rifles" and rifles that would not be considered assault rifles.

If it did, the insignificance of this so called issue would be even more clear than it already is.

Death by assault rifle is rare in America but when it happens, it is exploited by these journalists and politicians in order to further an anti-second amendment agenda that never ends.

They are not interesting in protecting your children, they are interested in enslaving them.

5 posted on 10/18/2016 5:18:12 AM PDT by RC one (The 2nd Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances)
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To: marktwain
There are approaches to gun control, such as universal background checks and cracking down on rogue gun dealers, that can reduce the daily death toll from guns.

Unsupported by any evidence. So-called "universal" background checks are a joke. They are based on the fantasy that when a criminal purchases a firearm from another criminal that they will obey the UBC law while preparing to break so many others, and that UBC will stop the transaction.

There are roughly 500,000 violent crimes committed each year with a firearm. If we estimate that a criminal obtains a firearm and uses it in say 10 such crimes (total guess here) before losing/discarding it, then that means there is a market/need for 50,000 illegal firearms coming into the "supply chain" each year. For comparison, there are roughly 20 million purchases - with background checks - from licensed dealers each year.

This points out that going after the "supply chain" by trying to force "universal" background checks is utterly futile. They are looking for that 0.25% in a field of 99.75% legal purchases... Even if they somehow succeeded - I have literally no idea how anyone could make "universal" background checks succeed - all they would do it induce criminals to hold onto firearms longer and/or raise the value of firearms that did make it into the criminal food chain. This extra value would actually be an incentive to commit more crimes to obtain that valuable commodity.

6 posted on 10/18/2016 6:00:39 AM PDT by ThunderSleeps (Stop obarma now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
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To: ThunderSleeps

You are right. But universal background checks have nothing to do with drying up a supply chain and everything to do with identifying who owns guns and exactly what do they own? They are much more concerned with id’ing the law abiding gun owners than they are slowing down the criminals.


7 posted on 10/18/2016 6:08:28 AM PDT by ModelBreaker
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To: ctdonath2
Not a good sign when otherwise law abiding citizens would rather be felons than comply.

That has been my argument against arbitrarily slow speed limits. They imply that drivers are either stupid or suicidal. They also move the highway patrol from the "Serve & Protect" role to that of being the Enemy.

Engineers used to use the "85% Rule" - set the speed limit at a speed which 85% of the drivers are driving at or below. The assumption was that most drivers are neither stupid nor suicidal. This rationale gave us speed limits of 70mph on Interstates while driving a 1950's car with lousy steering and tires, compared to today's vehicles.

If the gun laws of the 1950's are deemed inadequate to stem 'gun violence', what has changed since then?

Evil men no longer fear the death penalty.
God has been 'removed' from public life and education, so men no longer fear God.

Music, movies, TV and the new phenomenon of Video Games glorify extreme violence directed at authority and innocent bystanders. The old "shoot-em-ups" usually showed that there were consequences to lawless violence.

8 posted on 10/18/2016 6:09:29 AM PDT by BwanaNdege
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To: Morpheus2009

10 rounds? Don't be a pu**y.

9 posted on 10/18/2016 7:27:40 AM PDT by itsahoot (GOP says, Vote Trump. But if your principles won't let you, Hillary is OK.)
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To: RC one
It's worth mentioning that the graph doesn't even differentiate between rifles that would be considered "assault rifles" and rifles that would not be considered assault rifles.

Good Gun

Evil Gun

Same gun

10 posted on 10/18/2016 7:29:50 AM PDT by itsahoot (GOP says, Vote Trump. But if your principles won't let you, Hillary is OK.)
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To: ModelBreaker
They are much more concerned with id’ing the law abiding gun owners than they are slowing down the criminals.

No, no, no The law says they have to destroy those records.

11 posted on 10/18/2016 7:32:33 AM PDT by itsahoot (GOP says, Vote Trump. But if your principles won't let you, Hillary is OK.)
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To: itsahoot

“No, no, no The law says they have to destroy those records.”

Even if they did destroy them, most FFL’s keep their 4473 forms digitally. So it would be about a week long project (max) for the feds to i.d. 99.9% of the legal gun owners in the US and what guns they own. The only thing that stops them is private sales with no official background checks. And that’s why they are so fanatic about background checks for private sales.

What they can’t get from the 4473’s, they will get from data mining. If you buy Glock 27 magazines online, you probably own a Glock 29. If you buy .556 ammo online, you probably . . .


12 posted on 10/18/2016 8:48:55 AM PDT by ModelBreaker
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To: itsahoot

13 posted on 10/18/2016 11:46:02 AM PDT by RC one (The 2nd Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances)
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To: RC one

Graphic Warning!


14 posted on 10/18/2016 8:42:40 PM PDT by Big Red Badger (UNSCANABLE in an IDIOCRACY!)
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