Gun purchase waiting periods may become more frequent following Atlanta shooting

Advocates for stricter gun control measures look to implement longer waiting periods between background checks and the purchase of a gun.

According to the Atlanta Police Department, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long made a legal purchase of a 9mm handgun and within hours of the purchase he murdered eight people, seven of them women and six of them being of Asian descent.

Lawmakers and advocates slam current background check policies that allowed Robert Aaron Long to purchase a gun and obtain that gun on the same day, claiming that if Georgia had required him to wait before getting a gun, he might not have acted on his impulse Komo News reported.

"It's really quick. You walk in, fill out the paperwork, get your background check and walk out with a gun," said Robyn Thomas, executive director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "If you're in a state of crisis, personal crisis, you can do a lot of harm fairly quickly."

Matt Kilgo, a lawyer for Big Woods Goods, said the shooters purchase of the gun wasn’t out of the ordinary and that "There's no indication there's anything improper.”

The majority of states allow citizens to purchase a gun and obtain that gun on the same day, sometimes with a background check taking only minutes. Ten states and the District of Columbia require a wait period between background checks and the sale of a gun, with several states currently hoping to enact the same legislation in hopes to decrease gun violence.

Gun control advocates believe mandating a window between the purchase of a gun and taking possession can give more time for background checks to potentially help deter people who are considering harming themselves or others, Komo News reported.

According to the Giffords Center, studies suggest that waiting periods may help bring suicide rates by firearm down by as much as 11 percent and gun homicides by about 17 percent.

Representative David Wilkerson (D-GA) said Georgia Democrats plan to introduce legislation that would require people to wait five days between buying a gun and obtaining it, "I think a waiting period just makes sense.”

According to a 2020 analysis by the Rand Corp., studies suggest that waiting periods and the effects on mass shootings were inconclusive due to the sample size being too small.

California requires a ten day wait period after the sale of a gun but that wait period didn’t deter residents, more than 1.1 million California residents purchased guns last year.

Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont are the newest states to plan to introduce legislation that would require longer wait periods after the sale of a firearm.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) opposes waiting periods, pointing to 2018 federal firearm-tracing data that shows the average time between first retail sale of a gun and involvement in a crime was nearly nine years, Komo News reports.

"A right delayed is a right denied," said Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan Gottlieb.

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