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?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:
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.
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 Prohibition was repealed when its supporters realized that the disobeyed laws against alcohol brought the whole legal system into disrepute.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.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.
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.
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
The science of ballistics will prove what bullet came from which gun. in most cases it can tell you the type of gun. If that bullet kills someone does it matter how may other bullets were in the gun? did it have 9 friends or 49 friends. it does not make a damn bit of difference to the dead person. it could have come from a single shot weapon how does it make a difference. How do you tell which shotgun was used? was it 2 inch shells or 3 and a half inch shells was it a single shot or an automatic? How does registration help. Cars are registered does that stop accidents? a serial number never tells you what finger was on the trigger. Your gun gets stolen a 9 pm a quick mart is robbed at 930 pm does that registration tell you who stole the gun who did the robbery? is it enough time to report the theft if you were not home when it was stolen. You better have a rock solid alibi or you are going to jail. the robber comes back and throw the gun on your porch or in your yard and who finds it but the cops. your finger prints are the only ones on the gun the robber used rubber gloves. your finger prints are on the ammo, I hope you look good in stripes. How do you explain you did not know the gun was stolen. today you could get shot because they found the gun on your porch. trigger happy cops would be happy to shoot you as armed and dangerous and you just got home from out of town. the crooked cops story would be you dropped the gun on the porch after they shot you. serial number and ballistics match yep you killed the quick mart employees. good shooting cops justified and you are dead.
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