Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 5, 1993 TAG: 9301050012
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
GUN DEATH ROLL CALL TELLS ALL
Lorna Raines Crockett of Pulaski. Shot twice and killed. Thirty-two years old. Left a husband and three sons.
Leonard Nathaniel Hodges of Thaxton. Shot five times and killed. Fifty-eight years old. His crime: A dispute over the price of a 19-year-old used car.
Donald Campbell of Roanoke County. Shot once with a rifle and killed on Christmas Eve. Forty-five years old.
John Marshall Hostetter of Buena Vista. Shot five or six times and killed. Forty-two years old.
Michael Ray Sweeney Sr. of Boones Mill. Shot and killed. Thirty-five years old.
Barbara Wimbush of Buffalo Ridge. Shot five times with a .22-caliber rifle and killed. Thirty-six years old. Wakes up in the morning, sees her husband with a rifle, dashes into the bathroom and is shot there.
Tammy Young and Jerry Wayne Young. Apparent murder-suicide in Waidsboro, Franklin County. She was 21; he was 22.
Regina Lynn Jones and Frank Ellis Jones. Apparent murder-suicide in Buchanan. She was 29; he was 32.
William Reed of Fieldale. Shot once in the face, once in the back and killed. Fifty-eight years old. His body was found floating in Philpott Lake.
Sheila O. Simmons of Bassett. Shot in her car while sitting in a store parking lot. Also in the car: Her three children and her sister. Twenty-seven years old.
Steven Wikle.
Terry Wayne Anderson.
Vincent Peter Olichwier.
William Dale Hartman.
George F. Elliot.
It's a gory roll call, and makes no pretense of being complete. Nor does it chronicle one whit the anguish of the survivors or the torment of the killers.
It is a partial list of some of the people who were killed by gunfire in this part of Virginia during 1992.
Gun control never seems to have a prayer in Virginia, but later this month Gov. Doug Wilder will renew his call to impose extraordinarily mild limits on the purchase of firearms.
The governor feels it should be sufficient for Virginians to buy but one gun each month. Right now, Virginia is an all-you-can-buy smorgasboard of weaponry.
At the mere mention of something so reasonable, gunners whine because it could, eventually, infringe on their constitutional right to bear arms.
They will fear-monger, conjure the specter of horrible dictators who've succeeded because they first disarmed the masses. Thump the chest and pompously extoll the virtues and the foresight of the U.S. Constitution's authors.
And remind us: Guns don't kill people, people do. And lightning doesn't kill people, Mother Nature does.
Legislators need to remember the fresh graves in their own districts as they mull gun control this session. Maybe they need to spend a day in the Richmond morgue, or a weekend with the emergency squad, or a winter's morning at graveside.
Or wait a year. We'll have a fresh list to work with next January.