Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 10, 1991                   TAG: 9102110259
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GUN-CONTROL LAWS DON'T AFFECT CRIMINALS

What could be fairer for the General Assembly to do, put a three-day waiting period for purchase of a handgun up to the voters of Virginia, or ram it down our throats? The on-the-spot background check in use wasn't put up for a vote; I wonder if voters would have approved it.

On Feb. 4, the Virginia House of Delegates defeated the three-day waiting period bill for handguns you have been advocating by 55 to 42. This bill would have affected only law-abiding gun purchasers anyhow. Criminals will still get guns by illegal means, preferably by buying stolen guns and by stealing them.

To appease the anti-gun crowd, the House voted to extend the instant background check for handguns to all guns; but again, how many criminals are going to buy guns legally?

Your lopsided view of justice is reflected in your support of a gun ban in Roanoke's housing projects. If you were a resident of that project and the gun ban were in effect, how safe would you feel at night if all the criminals knew you didn't have a gun to protect yourself? If all the United States had a gun ban, how safe would you feel? The police can't be everywhere, but criminals are everywhere.

By the way, the 50-cent-a-gallon federal gas-tax increase you advocated would probably turn the current recession into a full-blown depression. A lot of retail stores have already filed for bankruptcy, and almost daily there is news of federal regulators taking over banks and savings-and-loans serving the Roanoke area. You're always taking polls, so ask the people on the street what a 50-cent-a-gallon tax increase would do to them. LARRY W. COMPTON MARTINSVILLE