GUN LOBBY FIRING OFF MISINFORMATION ON ONE-A-MONTH BILL

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 31, 1993                   TAG: 9301310157
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: E7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: WARREN FISKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
GUN LOBBY FIRING OFF MISINFORMATION ON ONE-A-MONTH BILL
If you're relying on the National Rifle Association or other gun lobbies to get accurate information on Gov. Douglas Wilder's one-handgun-a-month proposal, chances are you've been misinformed.
Law enforcement officials are miffed at the deceptions, threats and outright lies being sent to voters as the gun lobbies crank up their enormous mass-mail computers to defeat the legislation.
"It's a campaign of false information," says Randolph Rollins, state secretary of public safety. "For those trying to make up their minds on this debate based on the facts, this is a grave disservice."
The aim of Wilder's bill is to limit Virginians to one handgun purchase a month. Virginians can now buy an unlimited number of handguns, and many of the firearms are being illegally transported to Washington and New York and being used in violent crimes. Wilder and his allies are trying to end Virginia's reputation as a gunrunning mecca.
The NRA is trying to stir its 90,000 members in Virginia by falsely claiming the one-a-month limit also would apply to rifles. Consider this Jan. 14 letter James Jay Baker, the NRA's chief lobbyist in Washington, sent to members:
"The next time you get a chance to buy a couple of shotguns from a collection," he warned, "or need to sell someone one of your hunting rifles, remember that one gun a month will make you a criminal without doing a thing to the real criminals."
In fact, Virginians could continue to legally buy an unlimited number of rifles under the bill. But in almost all of its mail, the NRA refers to the legislation as a "gun-a-month" bill instead of a "handgun-a-month" bill.
Other misleading claims by the NRA include that:
The bill is a "gun registration scheme." Registration laws typically require gun-shop owners to file with police the name of each person who buys a firearm and the serial number of each weapon bought. Although names of handgun purchasers would be given to state police under Wilder's bill, serial numbers of weapons would not.
Record checks with commonwealth's attorney's offices in Norfolk and Richmond show "no evidence that anyone has ever been prosecuted at the state level" for violating Virginia's gunrunning laws.
It's true that local law enforcement officials are not prosecuting gunrunners. They're turning the cases over to the U.S. attorney's office because federal laws provide stiffer, mandatory jail sentences for such crimes. During the 17 months ending in November, U.S. Attorney Richard Cullen's office prosecuted 192 such cases - second highest in the nation's 94 federal court districts.
No doubt, the NRA is playing for keeps. The organization is encouraging its members to boycott NationsBank of Virginia. The president of the bank, Randolph W. McElroy, is leading an organization of Virginia businessmen promoting Wilder's bill.
"It may not accomplish a thing, but we urge you to take the simple step of utilizing another financial institution," the NRA wrote members.
The Gun Owners of America, a 100,000-member group that claims even the NRA is too soft on gun control, also has told a few whoppers. It claims that Wilder - a gun owner himself - has a "stated goal" of banning "pistols and rifles." Wilder denies it, and the gun group recently failed to produce documentation to back the claim.
The group also is distorting the records of many legislators in door-to-door leafleting in their districts. For example, they've accused Sen. Robert Russell, R-Chesterfield, of being a past supporter of "gun owner registration."
Russell is one of the staunchest supporters of gun rights in the General Assembly. He has an A-plus rating from the NRA, though he is breaking with the gun lobby this year to support a limit on multiple gun purchases.
But "I have never supported gun registration in my life," Russell insists. "I have never even whispered such thoughts in my wife's ear in the dead of night."
Each day, Russell said he receives about 10 indignant form letters from members of Gun Owners of America. He's responded to each with a letter of his own. "It's a shame to have to waste taxpayers money to respond to this nutso group," Russell said. "But I can't afford to let my constituents believe their lies."

Warren Fiske covers state government and politics in this newspaper's Richmond bureau.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB