Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 31, 1993 TAG: 9301310129
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E7 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
OPINIONS VARY ON PROS AND CONS OF S.C. GUN LIMIT
Seventeen years after South Carolina began limiting handgun purchases, there still is disagreement over whether the move has curbed violence and gunrunning.South Carolina's law is the model for Gov. Douglas Wilder's proposal to limit Virginia handgun purchasers to one gun a month.
The National Rifle Association says the South Carolina law has been ineffective. NRA officials have pointed out that South Carolina is fifth in the nation in per capita violent crime, while Virginia is 35th. They also say handgun thefts in South Carolina have increased to twice Virginia's rate.
Supporters of Wilder's bill say South Carolina's violent crime rate is historically high and that handgun thefts also have increased in Virginia, where purchases are not restricted.
Two veteran South Carolina legislators said in telephone interviews that they believe the law has helped reduce gun trafficking, which is the primary purpose of Wilder's proposal.
Figures from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms show the percentage of firearms seized in New York City and traced to South Carolina dropped from 20 percent in 1973 to 3 percent in 1992. Twenty-two percent of handguns recovered in New York in 1992 were traced to Virginia, according to ATF figures.
Gunrunning "was a bad problem" before the limit was adopted, said Sen. Ed Saleeby of Hartsville, S.C. "It seemed like all the criminals in New York got their guns from South Carolina. The gun-a-month has slowed that down."
Sen. John Land of Manning, S.C., agreed. "I don't hear much about gunrunning anymore," he said.
But the two Democratic senators said they do not believe the law - the only one of its type in the country - has had much impact on violent crime in their state.
"It's safe to say it has not caused the number of violent crimes committed with a handgun to go down," Land said.
Said Saleeby, "I don't think a limit of one handgun a month would have that much of a deterrent effect on crime."
Hugh Munn, spokesman for State Law Enforcement Division in South Carolina, said while gun trafficking has declined, gun-related crime within the state is a different matter.
"This is a gun-totin' state, which may explain why we rank only behind Florida, New York, California and Illinois in violent crime," he said. "Of course, it could be argued that our problem would be 10 times worse if we didn't have the handgun limit."
Two South Carolina legislators have written letters to some newspapers saying the purchase limit has been a failure. Senate Minority Leader Joe Wilson, a Republican from West Columbia, said he favors repeal of the law.
"My state is the only state with the restriction being considered by the Virginia General Assembly, and our tragic crime problem is proof that limiting gun sales to one a month has failed to make a dent in violent crime in our state," Wilson wrote.
Wilson also traveled to Richmond to testify at a House Courts of Justice Committee public hearing Friday.
"The effect of what we passed is of no consequence," Wilson said. "The only ones affected are honest people. Criminals can get all the guns they want."
State Rep. C. Alex Harvin III of Summerton, a Democrat, wrote that South Carolina "has unwittingly blindfolded law enforcement from detecting the rare individual who does buy a gun in a store with an eye toward illegal trafficking."
Harvin agrees with the NRA position that Virginia can better track down gunrunners by following up on multiple-purchase reports that are filed with federal authorities.
Supporters of Wilder's bill, however, say the lag time between purchase and receipt of the report makes prosecution impractical in most cases.
Critics of the proposal also say law-abiding Virginians should not be inconvenienced because of the criminal minority.
"That age-old argument from the NRA is that we restrict the honest man who abides by the law, and the criminal will get his handguns by hook or crook," said Land.
But he said there was little debate on the limit when legislators considered it 17 years ago "because of the theory that it was not an unreasonable restriction."
Mark Cloer, a salesman at The Ballistic Center in Columbia, S.C., said some customers would differ with that characterization of the law.
"Most people don't like it," he said. "It's kind of a stupid law as far as I'm concerned. On a first gun purchase, I can see some kind of waiting period. But after they've already got one gun, I don't see any reason for waiting to buy another."
He said collectors occasionally want to buy two or more guns at a time but are thwarted by the law. However, he said those customers "are not a big percentage by any means - maybe 5 percent of our total customers."
Six percent of the 60,044 handguns bought in Virginia in fiscal year 1991 were part of a multiple purchase, according to state police figures.
In South Carolina, handgun purchasers have to sign an affidavit stating they have not purchased a handgun within the previous 30 days. Munn said there were 291 multiple purchases among a total of 52,396 handgun buys in fiscal year 1992, but most of those were honest mistakes by people who counted the days incorrectly. Only 45 cases were referred to the ATF, he said.
Under the proposed Virginia law, handgun purchases would be entered into the state police computer when the gun dealer runs the instant criminal background check. The computer entry would alert the state police to deny any handgun purchase application made within the next 30 days.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.