Adam Winkler: Banning "Assault Rifles" Counterproductive

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 accurately 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 Prohibition was repealed when its supporters realized that the disobeyed laws against alcohol brought the whole legal system into disrepute.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.

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