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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 12, 1991                   TAG: 9103120369
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER MUNICIPAL WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AUTHORITY TO TRY GUN EDUCATION INSTEAD OF BAN

With a gun ban now out of the question, the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority will turn to an education program to try to address the problem of guns in public housing projects.

The authority will develop an educational program to inform residents - and outsiders who visit the projects - about the dangers and responsibilities of possessing a gun.

Herbert McBride, executive director of the authority, said Monday that the agency's staff and law-enforcement officials will work with the residents to establish a program targeted mainly at young people.

"Many young people apparently have never been taught gun safety or even made aware of the dangers of guns," he said.

The idea of a ban was dropped because the General Assembly recently approved a state law that prohibits housing authorities from banning guns, McBride said in a report to the agency's board of commissioners.

"Even if the General Assembly hadn't prohibited it, I wouldn't have recommended a ban," McBride said. "The problems with guns don't come from our residents - but from people who come in from outside."

He said no further consideration will be given to the firearms ban.

Authority officials also have dropped the idea of requiring residents in the housing projects to register their firearms as an alternative, he said.

Late last year, McBride said the agency was "taking a good, strong look" at a firearms bans after a federal judge upheld one in Richmond's public housing projects.

But Dan Layman, an attorney for the authority, said a firearms ban would be largely a "symbolic action" and may not be legally justified.

In a recommendation made before the General Assembly prohibited housing agencies from enacting a firearms ban, Layman said the authority had other legal grounds to evict tenants who are disruptive and violent. He also questioned whether the level of violence in Roanoke's housing projects justified a firearms ban similar to the one in Richmond.

In earlier interviews, some residents in the housing projects said they favored a firearms ban, but others said they would oppose it. A ban on residents' owning guns would leave a lot of good people unprotected, one man said. "Some of the young ones try to take advantage of you and come into your apartment and take things," he said.

by CNB