Election Notes Florida

Members of Congress are apparently so fearful of the National Rifle Association that they adjourned two weeks before the election without even calling a vote on a pending bill to require a seven-day waiting period before anyone can pocket the handgun he wants to buy. But Floridians demonstrated last week that the gun lobby may be losing its clout. In one of the most resounding defeats ever suffered by the N.R.A., 84% of the voters approved a proposition barring the immediate purchase of guns in the state.

While the N.R.A. outspent Handgun Control Inc. by a lopsided $100,000 to $25,000, the voters' overwhelming antigun sentiment stemmed from the state's mounting toll of firearm deaths: Florida has the highest crime rate of any state and the sixth highest homicide level.

The new law mandates a three-day waiting period, during which dealers must check the identity of would-be purchasers against a state computer data bank. If the buyer has been convicted of any felony or of certain violent crimes, he cannot walk away with the gun. No one is expecting the measure to change things overnight: the computer network may not go on-line until next year, and even then a criminal could provide false identification and eventually get his weapon. But police believe a cooling-off period would discourage the quick purchase and the ensuing crime of passion that causes so many needless deaths.