The wait is over for gun control activists, but it's just begun for gun buyers in Maine. Starting today, folks buying a firearm when a background check is required can't take their purchase home with them for at least 72 hours, even if they've already passed that background check and handed over their money. 

The waiting period bill was one of several gun control measures adopted by the state's Democratic majority in response to last year's mass shooting in Lewiston, though the law wouldn't have prevented the attack even if it had been in place at the time. The murderer purchased his firearms months before he carried out his killing spree, so the waiting period wouldn't have impacted him in the slightest. There were multiple opportunities for law enforcement and the military to intervene based on his mental health and a physical assault on a fellow Army reservist, but rather than address those failures Democrats instead went after the state's lawful gun owners. 

Gun control activist Nacole Palmer, who heads up the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, claims that the new law will reduce suicides in the state by mandating a "cooling off" period before people can take possession of a firearm. There is "limited" evidence that waiting periods reduce suicides, however, according to RAND, and Palmer herself says that the state needs many more gun control laws, including a ban on so-called assault weapons. 

She said a world with no gun regulations is a world where everyone is unsafe. 

"It means that 18 beloved Mainers can be shot and killed and 13 wounded in a bowling alley while they're having fun with their family and friends. It means that children can be shot in their schools," Palmer said. "It means that people can be shot and killed while they're doing the most benign things with their loving family members. To me, that's unacceptable, and I know for the majority of Mainers it is unacceptable... I remember when kids didn't get shot up in their schools. I grew up not having to worry about that. My child will not be living in that same world. To me, that's unacceptable, and I know that most Mainers don't believe that that's OK.

Of course there were already plenty of gun regulations in Maine when the Lewiston shooting took place, at both the state and federal level. And despite Palmer's claim to the contrary, there are also plenty of countries with highly restrictive gun laws that have a homicide rate much higher than the United States', including our neighbor Mexico. 

Nobody thinks that mass murder is "okay", except perhaps for the twisted souls who would target innocent lives. Palmer doesn't occupy some moral high ground here, and her contention that the kind of active shooter attack like the one that took place in Lewiston is a new phenomenon is simply absurd. But if she truly believes that the past was a far safer place, then how does she reconcile that with the fact that we had fewer gun control laws back then? 

Palmer and the Maine Gun Safety Coalition will be back next session to demand a ban on "assault weapons", a "red flag" law, and perhaps even longer waiting periods. Meanwhile, groups like Gun Owners of Maine and the Sportsmans Alliance of Maine say they'll be challenging the waiting period law in court. It will take far longer than 72 hours for Second Amendment advocates to get relief from the judiciary, unfortunately, and those Mainers who need a firearm because of a threat to their lives are now more at risk thanks to the efforts of lawmakers in Augusta.