Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 26, 1993 TAG: 9301260101
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WARREN FISKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
VICTIM'S MOTHER ENRAGED BY NRA MAIL
Byrl Phillips-Taylor is outraged that her son, gunned down almost four years ago in an execution-style shooting by a high school classmate, still receives mail from the National Rifle Association."I've asked the NRA not to send any more mail, but they just don't show any respect," said Phillips-Taylor, a Richmond-area real estate agent. "They don't care about my son and they don't care about me."
Phillips-Taylor was among about 500 Virginians who attended a gun control rally Monday outside the state Capitol. Her 17-year-old son, murdered in July 1989 one month after graduating from high school, last week received an NRA invitation to attend an anti-gun control demonstration today.
It is the second time the NRA has sought to enlist D. Scott Phillips' support since he was murdered. James Matthew Miller, a high school acquaintance, lured Phillips into the woods in James City County and shot him five times in the legs and lower back with an AK-47 assault rifle.
Miller stood over her wounded son and fired the sixth shot into his head, Phillips-Taylor said. Miller, who claimed insanity, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving a life term.
Phillips-Taylor said she has no idea how her son got on the NRA mailing list. She described him as a clean-living youth and accomplished swimmer who was looking forward to beginning college at Virginia Tech.
The first letter came a year after the slaying. The NRA was hoping Scott would send money to help battle proposed legislation for a national waiting period before handgun purchases.
"I went ballistic," Phillips-Taylor said. "I called their national headquarters in Washington. They assured me I would never get another thing."
The second letter asked Scott to rally against a proposal to limit Virginians to one handgun purchase a month. It brought back painful memories to Phillips-Taylor: of waiting up all night for a son who would never return; of identifying him from photos of his bullet-riddled corpse.
"It makes me mad when the NRA writes, `Guns don't kill, people do,' " she said. "If those weapons weren't out there, Scott wouldn't have gotten killed."
The anti-gun rally attracted an unusual mix of citizen lobbyists, from comfortable suburbs in Hampton Roads to a Richmond housing project to Harrisonburg.
Alice Mountjoy of Norfolk and Dick Parise of Virginia Beach are not people you might normally expect to find lobbying against guns. They are well-to-do suburbanites who seem insulated from inner-city violence.
But the two long had been bothered by escalating murder rates. So, last year they formed Virginians Against Handgun Violence, which helped sponsor Monday's rally.
They are hoping the group can become a counterweight to the NRA, which boasts 90,000 members in Virginia and routinely commits millions of dollars to lobbying.
Mountjoy and Parise have a long way to go. Their group only has "a couple hundred" members and a shoestring budget. But 15,000 Virginians have signed gun-control petitions in recent months and Parise is creating a computerized mailing list to improve lobbying efforts.
"We're in this for the long haul," said Parise, 61, a semi-retired businessman.
Mountjoy, mother of three young daughters, has been doing a crash course in lobbying. She has memorized the names and pictures of all 140 legislators and has begun to approach them around the Capitol to seek support.
Western Virginia is considered a stronghold of gun-rights enthusiasts. But Harrisonburg City Councilwoman Agnes Weaver said she's willing to buck constituents to lobby for tighter gun controls.
What she called a "horrible wake-up call" came last weekend as the manager of the city's Super Fresh Supermarket was shot and killed. The suspect, a 16-year-old, was with four friends - boys and girls - who apparently were shoplifting. The oldest member of the group was 18.
The killing of a well-known and popular neighbor "made me decide it was worth it to take the risk to come down here and put on this sticker," said Weaver, who was wearing an "I'm For Gun Control, and I Vote" sticker.
Gun violence is a daily reality in Richmond's inner city. Many residents of local housing projects turned out at the rally to seek help.
Brenda Dixon, mother of seven, remembered a night last year when a bullet crashed through her window at the Dove Court projects, less than 5 miles from the Capitol. "We dropped to the floor and didn't move," she said.
"I'm scared for my kids, I'm scared for me," she added. "We need to get rid of all these guns."
Barbara White, a single mother of three at Dove Court, also is fearful. She said a 14-year-old boy was shot on her street last month. "You see drug dealers and crime everywhere," she said. "It's nerve-wracking. I don't let my children go outside."
Although White hopes the one handgun-a-month bill passes, she doubts it will solve her problems. "We need no guns a month."
Norfolk State University freshman Alicia Peters said she has had more than enough contact with handguns during her 18 years.
As a student at Highland Springs High School (Class of '92) outside Richmond, she knew young people who brought guns to school, Peters said. Then last weekend, she passed by the site of a drive-by shooting near NSU. "It's scary. It's real scary. I could have been up right beside that car," said Peters, who came to Richmond with members of the university's concert choir.
Staff writer Margaret Edds contributed to this story.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1993