Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 8, 1993 TAG: 9303080751
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
TAKE VIRGINIA'S GUN BILL NATIONWIDE
GOV. WILDER has been praised by President Clinton for standing up to the National Rifle Association and getting a law passed to limit handgun purchases in Virginia.The governor deserves the praise, as do lawmakers who stood with him in favor of the legislation.
Restricting handgun-purchases to one per month, except with permission of the police, is certainly not a remedy for all gun-related crime. But it should slow gunrunning in Virginia and help reverse the state's reputation as a supply center for shooters and thugs up and down the coast.
Even better than the law itself, though, may be its ramifications beyond Virginia's borders. That such a measure could pass here, a bastion of NRA power, sends a potent message around the country: If Virginia can do it, so can others.
And our example may not only embolden other governors and legislatures. It also could help smooth the way for sensible national legislation the NRA has logjammed for decades.
This is important because - as welcome as it is that Virginia and other states are inching into gun control - the result is still a hodgepodge of laws of varying effectiveness, which stimulates interstate commerce in guns.
Consider Virginia's experience. Gun-control efforts in New York, the District of Columbia and other cities helped send gunrunners by the bus-loads into the Old Dominion. They often exchanged drugs here for the guns they took back.
Now, one effect of Virginia's new law may be to shift a portion of that baggage onto other states. Gun traffickers will find other areas with lax or no regulation. And so it will continue - until the federal government provides a measure of national uniformity.
The Brady Bill has been reintroduced in Congress, and Clinton has promised to sign it. Good.
It would require a five-day waiting period in every state before the purchase of a handgun. The waiting period not only would give local police time for a background check; it also would provide a cooling-off period for hotheads eager to shoot in anger.
The federal legislation - named for James Brady, the White House press secretary who was seriously wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan - includes federal funds to upgrade states' computerized record-keeping on criminals. The waiting period, unfortunately, would be phased out once the nationwide system to instantly identify felons is up to speed.
But, meantime, if Clinton so admires Wilder's one-handgun-a-month limit, he should push to adopt it federally. Rep. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey has introduced legislation to take the Virginia plan nationwide, as a complement to the Brady Bill. Why not?
If Virginians wonder why law-abiding citizens (with legitimate exceptions) would need to buy more than one handgun a month, surely other Americans must wonder as well. A national limit would reduce gun-trafficking from states with lax laws to those states more willing to stand with their law-enforcement officials and citizen majorities against NRA extremism.