Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 27, 1992 TAG: 9201270217
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARK LAYMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
POLL: RESIDENTS FAVOR HANDGUN WAITING PERIOD
THERE ARE GUNS in nearly half the households in the Roanoke Valley. But most residents don't oppose some restrictions on the sale of guns.
Roanoke Valley residents favor a five-day waiting period for buying handguns, and they'd like to see a ban on "Saturday night specials" and semiautomatic assault rifles.
They also favor registration of all handguns.
But they oppose a complete ban on handguns, the latest Roanoke Valley Poll found.
Jeanne Tryban, 42, of Roanoke, said people who want to buy handguns should be checked out "to make sure criminals don't get guns. It's too easy to get a gun anymore."
Tryban was surprised to find out that, even though teen-agers can't buy guns, there is no law against their possessing guns. "I figured that since they couldn't buy them, they couldn't possess them," she said. "That's dumb!"
Jim Martin, 59, of Roanoke County, is a gun owner. He's skeptical about most gun-control laws. "The bad boys that really want [guns] are going to get them," he said. Washington, D.C., for example, has strict gun control laws but a high murder rate, he pointed out.
But Martin doesn't see anything wrong with a waiting period. "If I'm gonna buy a new gun to target-shoot with, I don't have to have it today," he said.
Teen-agers with guns aren't as big a problem here as they are in bigger cities, Martin said. Still, he thinks there should be tough penalties for adults who buy guns for teen-agers - if the guns are used in a crime.
And Martin might support a ban on the possession of guns by teen-agers if exceptions are made for hunting and target practice.
Doug Hicks, 40, of Vinton, said he is "not so naive to think that if we have stricter laws, it will stop the criminals." But if you're a good citizen, he asks, "what difference does it make if you have to wait" to buy a gun?
Half of the 400 people surveyed in last fall's poll said they or someone in their family owned a gun. Forty-four percent of those said the gun was used primarily for hunting or recreation. Twenty-five percent said it was used for personal defense. Twenty-two percent said it was part of a collection.
The poll was conducted by Roanoke College's Center for Community Research and has a 5 percent margin of error. That means that, if every adult in the Roanoke Valley were surveyed, there is a 95 percent chance the results would fall within 5 percentage points of those found in the poll.
The Roanoke Times & World-News co-sponsors the Roanoke Valley Poll.