To sum up: 98% of background checks are completed “within minutes,” and any complaints about delays in processing the remaining 2% should be directed to DeSantis’ fellow Republican, a guy who got gold stars from the NRA and whose office had a significant part of its administrative gun regulation responsibilities abolished by statute last year.
But all this discussion about background checks and timing misses the point about the actual purpose of the 3-day waiting period: it’s not to give the government time to review the gun buyer’s background, but to give the gun buyer time to cool down— a topic of specific concern when Martin’s bill eliminates the waiting period on all non-handgun firearms, including the AR-15 type rifles that have been a prominent factor in so many deadly mass shootings.
Swisher’s report on Martin’s bill noted that supporters of gun purchase waiting periods, or “cooling-off” periods, argue “they reduce suicides and homicides by delaying access to firearms for buyers dealing with bouts of rage or despair,” citing a 2017 Harvard University study that found waiting periods “led to a 17% reduction in gun homicides.”
In 2021, Pew Research Center data showed that guns are involved in more than half of all suicides (26,328 out of 48,183, or 55%) and over 8 out of every 10 murders (20,958 out of 26,031, or 81%) — and both numbers sadly hit near-record highs that year.
That’s the true purpose of Florida’s waiting period to buy guns — to give people a few days to pause before they put themselves or others into either of those tragic statistical categories — and DeSantis puts Floridians’ lives at risk by neglecting to respect that