Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 30, 1994 TAG: 9401300065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
A Republican governor elected in a landslide is pressing an NRA-friendly, tough-on-criminals agenda, while Democrats are scrambling to co-opt pieces of the popular plan.
Arguing last week that a special session on parole requested by Gov. George Allen may be unnecessary after the Democratic majority finishes its work, House Speaker Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, signaled the bipartisan pull of stronger criminal penalties.
"Finally, we're fighting on a field of reason rather than emotion," said Chuck Cunningham, deputy director of state and local affairs of the NRA and a lobbyist in Richmond.
Even so, gun-control advocates, who last year scored their greatest state victory with passage of a one-a-month limit on handgun purchases, are pushing forward with proposals to ban assault weapons, monitor private sales of handguns, and license firearm dealers.
While none of those has anywhere near the organized support that the one-gun-a-month proposal rallied, the continued popularity of gun-control measures in opinion polls leaves a chance of some addition to state gun laws, legislators say.
The cause is bolstered also by statistics released last week indicating that shootings have replaced highway fatalities as the leading cause of death by injury in six states, including Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
"The NRA would be happy if we'd go away," said Alice Mountjoy of Norfolk, president of Virginians Against Handgun Violence. "But we're not going away."
The highest-profile gun debate likely will come over a plan to ban 15 specific firearms, known as assault weapons, plus any others fitting a prescribed definition. Assault weapons - high-powered guns capable of firing a large number of bullets rapidly - are banned in California, Hawaii, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Del. Jean Cunningham, D-Richmond, has introduced a bill drafted last year by an assault-weapons task force appointed by former Gov. Douglas Wilder. Focus on that group fizzled after Democrat Mary Sue Terry lost the governor's race while running on a gun-control platform, and Wilder left office without making a recommendation on the proposal.
But Wilder's former secretary of public safety said in an interview last week that he is prepared to testify for Jean Cunningham's bill. Randolph Rollins, who headed the Wilder task force, said he favors a ban, even though statistics show that relatively few violent crimes are committed with such weapons.
The intimidation such weapons create in poor neighborhoods and among police officers "convinced me they have a much more significant impact on public safety than statistics would tell you," Rollins said. "Also, they just have no legitimate use in the civilian world."
The NRA's Chuck Cunningham said gun advocates will fight any ban for a host of reasons, including the lack of a clear link between what he called "pseudo-assault weapons" and crime. "We have a good feeling that it won't be enacted," he said.
The NRA also will oppose most other gun-control proposals: state licensing for Virginia's 7,900 federally licensed firearms dealers; a five-day waiting period for gun purchases; a requirement that private sellers of guns arrange through a dealer for a criminal background check of prospective buyers; and a requirement that gun buyers get trained in firearm safety.
The only gun legislation the NRA currently plans to back would limit gun purchases by individuals who have been adjudicated incompetent or involuntarily treated at a mental hospital.
"There's a sense among members of the General Assembly . . . that gun control is not crime control," said the NRA's Cunningham.
On the "crime control" side, there is wide support for a proposal that three-time violent felons be sentenced to life in prison. Sen. Kenneth Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, and Del. Randy Forbes, R-Chesapeake, are carrying that plan for Allen, and a bill sponsored by House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke County, has 85 co-sponsors in the 100-member House.
Del. James Almand, D-Arlington, who heads the House committee overseeing such legislation, predicted that a series of bills increasing penalties for first- and second-time felons also will have broad backing.
Partisanship may peak, however, when it comes to the centerpiece of Allen's anti-crime agenda: abolishing parole for violent offenders.
Moss, among other Democrats, last week questioned whether a special session is needed to deal with the issue. When Democratic governors have requested special legislative sessions, Republicans "screamed and hollered that we were wasting taxpayer money," Moss said. He hopes to find a way to avoid that session, he added.
Republicans agreed that the broad changes they envision in parole likely cannot be completed until 1995, after a sentencing commission recommends penalties for various offenses. But they said the General Assembly cannot agree to a direction on parole until a special parole task force appointed by Allen completes its work this spring.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB