Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 9, 1992 TAG: 9202090196
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
HOUSE RACES TO PASS GUN BILL
Practically stumbling over itself in a rush to react to fatal shootings Friday outside a Norfolk high school, the House of Delegates on Saturday passed legislation to provide up to a 10-year prison term for anyone convicted of firing a gun around school property.Without dissent, the House approved a proposal by Del. William Moore, D-Portsmouth, to make firing or brandishing a firearm within 1,000 feet of school property a felony. It is a misdemeanor now, and a felony for adults under federal law.
So eager were the delegates to get on record against guns around schools that they twice jammed their computerized voting system as they suspended their rules to move the bill forward.
"Parents must be able to send their children to school without fear," Moore said. During this school year, more than 50 guns have been confiscated from public schools in South Hampton Roads, up from 18 in the entire 1988-98 school year, he said.
Moore was joined by a chorus of Hampton-Roads-area speakers who decried school violence.
"Schools are places of learning and not violence," said Del. Phillip Hamilton, R-Newport News.
At Hamilton's urging, the House amended Moore's bill to increase the penalty for firing a gun near a public school to two to 10 years in prison.
The measure also makes it a felony, punishable by one to five years in prison, for anyone to point or brandish a gun within the gun-free zone. Possession of a loaded gun on school property also would fall into that category.
The stiffer penalties would apply to all cities and towns, and to counties in Northern Virginia. In the remaining counties, firing, brandishing or possessing guns on school property would remain a misdemeanor.
Moore's bill seemed to provide an outlet for delegates nervous about Virginia's reluctance to pass more stringent gun-control measures. Bills to require a three-day waiting period for handgun sales and to limit handgun purchases to one a month died in committee earlier this session. Efforts to revive the gun-a-month proposal were continuing Saturday in a House committee, however.
Republicans, in league with more conservative, rural Democrats, have kept those measures from passage.
The rise of urban clout in the General Assembly, coupled with an increase in gun-related violence - especially involving children - has made bills like Moore's increasingly popular to legislators.
A shooting outside Booker T. Washington High on Friday afternoon left one youth dead and another critically wounded. The wounded youth died Saturday.
Staff writer Thomas Boyer contributed to this story.
Keywords:
FATALITY