Statistic and gun sales

[mayosligo]

Heard someone talking today about waiting periods and they said there was a federal study that showed a correlation between the day a gun was purchased and that gun being used to shoot someone in a crime or self defense. I thought this sounded odd because I work with stats and I am not sure how they would measure that. Especially when the vast majority of crimes involving a firearm involve an illegal gun either stolen or pitched outside of a legal means. Anyone know if there is any validity to this claim?

[Tom Servo]

There is no validity to the claim. Things were made up during the early 1990's to justify "cooling-off" (or waiting) periods, but I don't recall seeing a shred of evidence to back that up.

The DOJ does maintain statistics (http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/ATF/e0405/background.htm) on what's called "time-to-crime," but those are measured in years, not days.

[mayosligo]

I somewhat figured it was a misunderstood stat that was made up or misinterpreted. Again I could not figure how they could measure it as it was stated.