With eleventh hour guidance from the state, Maine gun retailers on Friday began requiring a three-day wait period for gun purchases under one of the new safety laws adopted following the state’s deadliest mass shooting.

Maine joined a dozen other states with similar laws, requiring that buyers wait 72 hours to complete a purchase and retrieve a weapon. The law is among several gun-related bills adopted after an Army reservist killed 18 people and injured 13 others on Oct. 25, 2023, in Lewiston.

The new law wouldn’t have prevented the tragedy — the gunman bought the rifle legally months earlier — but Friday’s milestone was celebrated by gun safety advocates who believe it will prevent gun deaths by providing a cooling-off period for people intent on buying a gun to do harm to others or themselves.

Wall Street ends a wild and scary week

After a manic week that began with Japanese stocks falling to their worst loss since 1987’s Black Monday, only for U.S. stocks to soar later to their best day since 2022, slight gains on Friday carried Wall Street almost exactly back to where it began the week.

The S&P 500 rose 0.5% to shave what had been a brutal loss for the week down to a barely registerable 0.04%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 51 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.5%.

The gains pulled the S&P 500 back within 5.7% of its all-time high set last month, after it had sunk nearly 10% below that record during the week.