Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991 TAG: 9102210380
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
As passed by the House, the bill would require a criminal background check for buyers of all guns except antiques. Current law requires the checks only for assault weapons and short-barrel handguns.
In debate Tuesday, some senators opposed making hunters who buy shotguns and rifles subject to the background checks.
In an effort to save the bill, Sen. Moody Stallings, D-Virginia Beach, proposed an amendment to have the checks cover all handguns. Shotguns and rifles would not be included unless they fall "into the category of the assault weapon," he said.
The Senate voted 20-17 to approve the bill with the amendment.
Despite the change, the only Western Virginia senator who voted for the bill was Elliot Schewel, D-Lynchburg.
Voting no were Dudley Emick, D-Fincastle; Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount; Granger Macfarlane, D-Roanoke; and Madison Marye, D-Shawsville.
Del. George Allen, R-Albemarle, who proposed the House version, said he would ask that the Senate change be rejected.
Stallings agreed that the bill will wind up in a conference committee.
"Lord knows what will happen to it there," he said.
Also Wednesday:
A bill seeking to stem the flood of railroad damage suits into Hampton Roads courts won handy passage in the House.
By an 81-16 vote, the House approved allowing Virginia judges to dismiss lawsuits filed by out-of-state railroad workers injured outside the state. Judges had that right until 1978, when the assembly took it away.
Virginia's railroads claimed to have paid more than $41 million in damages since 1987 to non-residents.
Railroad lobbyists contended that injured workers flock to Hampton Roads because of sympathetic juries, and that a handful of local lawyers, particularly former state Sen. Willard Moody of Portsmouth, have built lucrative practices representing the workers.
The House voted 56-41 to kill a bill that would increase the penalty for giving guns, switchblades or Bowie knives to children. The bill by Sen. Eddy Dalton Phillips, R-Richmond, would have changed the penalty from a $250 fine to a maximum of a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
A bill expanding the law barring guns from school property cleared the Senate, 29-8. Current law applies only to people who carry guns. The bill would allow prosecution of people who store guns in school lockers or transport them onto school property in their vehicles.
Sen. Kevin Miller, R-Harrisonburg, said that "over the last 20 years, I would have been guilty not dozens of times, but hundreds of times under this bill" because he carries hunting weapons in his truck.
But Sen. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania, said commonwealth's attorneys would have the discretion not to prosecute such cases.
The House voted 81-17 to reject the Senate's attempt to revive a bill to give police more power to enforce the state's seat-belt law.
A Senate bill allowing police to ticket a seat-belt violator without first stopping him for another offense was rejected last week by a House committee. The Senate revived the bill as an amendment to a House bill making seat-belt violations a traffic offense.
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by CNB