Gun waiting periods prevent hundreds of homicides, according to 45-year study

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A few days to cool off and think things through may be enough to prevent hundreds of homicides each year, according to a new study in PNAS.

A study tracking handgun laws on wait periods over a 45-year period found that a delay in obtaining a firearm after purchase reduced gun homicides by 17 percent. That breaks down to about 36 homicides per year for the average state. As of 2014, such laws in 16 states and the District of Columbia prevented about 750 gun homicides per year. If all 50 states required a wait, around 910 more lives could be spared, the authors report.

"Waiting periods would therefore reduce gun violence without imposing any restrictions on who can own a gun," according to the authors, led by Deepak Malhotra, a negotiation and conflict-resolution expert at Harvard Business School.

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