Also called
cooling down period, a
precaution based on the false assumption of
some people that
ALL people who buy firearms are insane, angry, and/or are just doing so to be able to kill someone without any justification.
An idea which only appears intelligent to those who aren't or actually believe that the only person who would ever buy a gun and want it immediately is a crazed lunatic who will most definitely go into a school and start shooting at anything that moves.
Would this waiting period have prevented (insert past or recent massacre here, school related or otherwise)? 99.9% of the time, no. Would it prevent future firearm related deaths? No. Will a determined murderer be left without other choices should the local bloodbath and beyond gun shop refuse to release a gun the same day the person paid for it? No. Will it prevent a person who has been just very recently threatened with bodily harm by an Ex/Stalker from having one of the most effective methods of stopping a violent attacker? Yes.
Stating that the NRA had proposed that convicted felons should be allowed to have firearms is just plain preposterous and silly, not to mention blatantly false and misleading. Convicted felons, unless convicted in absentia, are in jail. After they are released, they now are called reformed citizens, regardless of their actually being so (a point that we will not cover here). A reference to the fine israeli designed sub machine gun, the uzi, is just another example of how some people view some particular firearms as inherently more evil than others, more often than not based only on how it looks, or because the bad guys use it on some video game they have seen or because TV said so, because TV is always right right?. Which of course is wrong and is just a product of propaganda and/or extremely silly California laws. Buying (and actually getting) guns on impulse has fortunately become a reality due to the advent of better networks and the NICS instant checking system.
To those who still might maintain that this is an intelligent thing, may I just wish aloud that they already have changed their opinion on this or already are armed with an effective means of defense should a sudden and unexpected threat presents itself or become obviously imminent.
Why I bother to write this, I do not know. I am in a third world country where we don't have magazine capacity limits or waiting periods and USA laws on guns will not directly affect me.
the references to the NRA comments and the Uzi were reactions to a wu that has since been marked for destruction and is now gone.
In response to SEF's wu, it is not so much as a more muscular system, but rather a more foolproof system that is needed to have avoided that retard from ridding the world of himself. It is already illegal to sell a firearm to a person with a history of violence and mental incapacity.