Taking Down the Arguments in Favor of Michigan’s Waiting Period Proposal

Michigan is looking more and more like a state that isn’t going to meet a gun control law that it doesn’t like. It’s not quite as bad as California, but it’s not for lack of trying, and that’s just sad.

As it stands now, the state is considering a number of problematic measures, including a “high-capacity” magazine ban and gun restrictions for adults under 21, all things we’ve talked about before. They’re also looking at implementing a three-day waiting period for gun sales.

While the usual suspects are touting this as a good, necessary thing, the arguments they use have some serious problems with them, as Mark Chesnut notes over at The Truth About Guns:

“This is a straightforward safeguard designed to slow down moments of crisis,” [Democrat Rep. Helena] Scott told the news channel.

Of course, as NRA-ILA points out in a fact sheet on its website, waiting periods are actually just arbitrary impositions with no effect on crime or suicide, introduce no additional investigative avenues, and only burden law-abiding gun owners without changing how or when criminals obtain firearms.

“There is no evidence that waiting periods reduce suicides, homicides, or mass shootings,” the fact sheet states. “No studies that identify causal effects have been identified by any of the independent literature reviews conducted since 2004.”

The fact sheet also notes that waiting periods do not alter the background check process, as no additional investigative measures are taken regardless of the length of the waiting period. Furthermore, according to NRA-ILA, research indicating that waiting periods have some positive effects is flawed.

“Recent research that purports to find that waiting periods reduce firearms-related deaths is fundamentally flawed, as it also finds that background checks increase gun homicides and that poverty is associated with a decrease in homicides,” the fact sheet states.

And, honestly, while I kind of giggle at the concept of background checks increasing homicides with a firearm, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense one way or the other, and the idea that poverty is associated with a decrease in homicides is kind of insane. So yeah, the studies that claim waiting periods reduce suicides are not to be taken seriously.

Then again, most studies involving guns shouldn’t be taken seriously, if we’re going to be real about it.

As for mass shootings, it’s incredibly rare for anyone to commit a mass shooting with a gun they just purchased. I can only recall the Atlanta massage parlor shooting as an example of it happening, and even then, there’s no reason to believe that someone filled with rage and blaming massage parlors for his addiction to prostitutes wouldn’t hold onto that rage for a few more days.

Weird, I know, but it’s also true. No such evidence exists anywhere, so far as I’ve been able to discover.

See, the truth is that the so-called studies that push waiting periods keep being brought out to justify delaying someone’s purchase of a firearm, even though nothing else happens in that time, all on the premise that it’ll stop people from taking their own lives, are basically a case of garbage in, garbage out. They’re less than useless. The paper they’ve been printed on doesn’t even make good toilet paper, for crying out loud.

And we’re supposed to just roll over and take it?

Michigan, you need to wake up before your rights are completely gone, because if a right delayed is a right denied, then a mandated delay in your right to keep and bear arms, particularly for no reason whatsoever, is particularly egregious.

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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