See, they think Maine's new waiting period is the bee's knees and in defending it, they...fail to actually defend it much.

“This is an emotional issue for many, and there are compelling arguments for and against,” Gov. Janet Mills said in an April statement explaining she would let the law pass without her signature. “This is not an easy issue.”

This was a cautious and generous stance by the governor. It’s not an easy issue, no – but it was reductive to suggest that the “emotional” weight of gun violence in Maine being driven by suicide could be as compelling as the need for the state’s gun shows, to give just one example,to avoid the introduction of any friction at all.

The supposed “quagmire” the 72-hour pause creates for sellers and buyers and the apparent intolerability of an “administrative burden” suggests that those resistant to the law have zero appreciation for its intent, for its potential value to public safety. Arguments against such a modest attempt at making Maine’s relationship to firearms more safe are self-serving. Viewed more coldly, they put commerce above concern for others. 

One month before the devastation of the Lewiston shooting last October, this editorial board wrote the following: “Place the ‘unfair burden’ of laughably dry, run-of-the-mill measures like waiting periods on purchases on those law-abiding gun owners. Even if you think they’re merely symbolic, make these safeguards a reasonable condition of gun ownership, a right that has caused America such staggering loss and bloodshed. That’s the only unfair burden at issue here.”

Now, in fairness, they do mention the whole suicide thing, and there are studies that suggest that waiting periods reduce gun suicides, though no one has bothered to look at what they do for suicides as a whole, which is part of the issue here, but that's the closest they get to actually defending the measure with anything other than raw emotion.

First, even if you believe that restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms may actually make us safer, there has to be a line where a law simply shouldn't exist, especially if you're acknowledging that it is, in fact, a right. Symbolism isn't a valid reason to offer restrictions because, if you do that, literally anything can be justified. "A total gun ban won't reduce crime, but even if it's merely symbolic, that's acceptable with a right that has caused America such staggering loss and bloodshed."

It's insane that the board actually thought this was a reasonable line of thought.

As for the "quagmire" and people resistant to the law having "zero appreciation for its intent," you're damn right we don't. For one thing, opponents of waiting periods don't just argue they don't work to reduce crime as most criminals aren't buying guns from the store, but that they can actually make it harder for someone who needs a firearm to protect themselves right away.

Then they invoke the specter of Lewiston, all while dodging the fact that a two-year waiting period wouldn't have stopped that particular maniac since he already owned the guns he used in that horrific attack. This is a common enough thing, where people pretend one horrific event justifies everything they want to do, but it doesn't.

See, the problem with waiting periods isn't just that they don't really work to stop crime. It's not even that we have no real reason to believe they even reduce suicides. It's that a right delayed is a right denied. If newspaper editorials had to have a 72-hour waiting period before being published, the board would lose their minds, and they'd be right to do so.

But the right to keep and bear arms has never been the problem in this country. It's never going to be the issue, and delaying people from buying guns won't actually make anyone safer.

The least the board could have done, though, is actually try to defend the law beyond, "What harm is it really doing?"

Plenty, but everyone involved with that editorial is too dense to understand that.