Just hours before a 21-year-old gunman with a self-described mental-health issue killed eight people near Atlanta last week, he walked into a store and bought the murder weapon as if picking up a gallon of milk. A waiting period might have thwarted the rampage. Wide majorities of Americans, including gun owners, support reforms including waiting periods.

Yet a Congress paralyzed by one party in thrall to the National Rifle Association refuses to stanch the blood. Democrats who hold a thin majority should do whatever's necessary — including eliminating or altering the Senate filibuster — to finally pass this and other national gun reforms.

It's still unclear whether the March 16 attack by Robert Aaron Long at three spas was racially motivated (six of the victims were women of Asian descent). What's beyond debate is that the attack was enabled by Long's easy and immediate access to a 9mm semi-automatic pistol. Georgia, like Missouri and 38 other states, doesn't require a waiting period for gun purchases, ensuring that someone in the throes of temporary fury can inflict permanent damage. Data from the 10 states that do impose waiting periods — including Illinois, with a 72-hour waiting period for handguns — indicates it can make a difference. Studies cited by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence show waiting periods may reduce firearms suicides by as much as 11% and gun homicides by about 17%.

Long, a self-described sex addict, was "emotional" after being kicked out of his parents' home the night before the shootings, according to police. A police spokesman's comment that Long had a "bad day" prompted understandable backlash — that's no excuse for murder — but also appears to have been accurate. If Long had had to wait a few days to get the gun, would it have cooled those emotions and prompted him to rethink his intentions? It's certainly possible.

Less than a week after the Georgia massacre, another gunman opened fire Monday at a store in Boulder, Colorado, killing 10. Details were still emerging Tuesday.

Currently, passing the national gun reforms that most Americans favor is impossible because of the filibuster, which effectively requires a 60-vote supermajority to pass most legislation. That means the Republican minority can (and would) stop even such a rational and popular idea as a national waiting period for gun purchases.

As we and others have said recently, the filibuster has outlived any constructive purpose it might once have had and is now primarily a tool for obstruction of progress — or, in this case, of sanity. Not all gun deaths are by shooters in the throes of some immediate emotional crisis, but for the many that are, being forced to cool off for a few days before laying hands on a deadly weapon could be the difference between life and death.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Photo credit: MasterTux at Pixabay