Pro-gun leftist explains why an ‘assault weapons’ ban doesn’t work

It’s a long article but well worth the read. It goes into the arbitrary definitions of “assault weapons,” the incredible rareness of the actual problem despite its sensational nature, the problem of perception and media portrayals, the Achilles’ heel of restricting magazine capacity, the question of grandfathering, and the ineffectiveness (except in making people feel safer) of the expired assault-weapon ban.

It concludes with the following questions:

If gun control advocates want to actually have meaningful discussion and debate about the “assault weapon” and “high capacity” ban, they MUST address these questions:

• Why ban cosmetic features?
• Why ban guns used in a mere 2% of crime?
• Why base gun control legislation on rare and statistically insignificant mass shootings to begin with?
• Why ban magazines that have been consistently sized since their invention?
• How would banning these magazines have saved lives, given that all a shooter needs is multiple magazines and 3 seconds of time (i.e. Cho)?
• How will a ban on either these weapons or magazines reduce crime, since there are many millions of them legal and available anyway, especially since production has ramped up after the ban’s expiration?

And most importantly:

• After a decade of failure, why assume that the bans will reduce violent crime THIS time around?