Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 27, 1994 TAG: 9403010196
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: O. RANDOLPH ROLLINS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Two questions must be asked about Allen's proposals: First, will they be effective? Second, why don't they address the gun issue?
The alarming trends in violent-crime statistics and the horrific crimes reported on television daily are not new, although the intensity of public concern about crime certainly is. Nor are many of Allen's recommendations that different from those of the previous administration. Only last year, then-Gov. Douglas Wilder offered a comprehensive violent-crime initiative, including a proposal to limit purchases of handguns -the preferred weapon in Virginia homicides - to one per month. With strong gubernatorial leadership, 13 of these proposals, including the handgun-purchase limit, were adopted by the General Assembly.
Allen has made the only bill that failed last year one of the mainstays of his crime package. His bifurcated-trials proposal, which allows juries to know of an offender's prior criminal record when meting out a sentence, this year is well on its way to passage.
Allen's crime program relies heavily on increased penalties - for repeat felony offenders and for use of firearms in crime. This approach rests on the "career-criminal theory:" Lock the repeat offender away for a long(er) time, and the public will be safe.
But legitimate questions can be raised about the effectiveness of these measures. Repeat violent felons, for example, are not the only - or even the leading - source of future violent crime. From 1990-1992, they accounted for only 18 percent of new offenses. That means the other 82 percent were committed either by nonviolent offenders or those with no criminal record (more than 50 percent). To me, it seems the Allen program misses a large part of the target.
Moreover, minimum mandatory sentences for use of a gun in crime apparently have little deterrent effect. A 1993 study of convicted adult offenders showed that fewer than 40 percent even knew the penalty was higher if a gun was used, and fewer than one-fourth of that number cared about it. But experts will tell you that the presence of guns makes it four times more likely that death will occur in any violent assault, and that guns are involved every year in nearly 60 percent of Virginia's murders.
This leads me to an even more fundamental point. How can we have a credible crime policy for Virginia that fails to address the gun issue - when guns are so much a part of the problem? Yet the Allen plan is silent when it comes to gun control.
No, we don't need a waiting period for Virginia. The state police's system of instant criminal-background checks already does the job and is a model for the nation. But Allen could support the licensing of firearms dealers in Virginia.
Because of lack of investigative resources, federal licensing of gun dealers is a charade, permitting fly-by-night operators to buy guns wholesale and even allowing felons to get and keep gun dealer licenses. We should not rely on proposed federal reforms, however encouraging they may seem, to fix an ineffective system.
At the very least, our governor should want to authorize our state police to take state dealer applications and investigate them thoroughly, thus closing a big loophole for illegal gun trafficking and protecting Virginia's citizens and reputation.
Allen could also support a ban on assault weapons. There is just no reason for anyone to possess these military-style rapid-fire guns whose only purpose is to kill people. Nor should these weapons be confused with semiautomatic shotguns and rifles used for hunting - and they won't be, if they are defined using the carefully researched proposal developed by the Task Force on Assault Weapons, which I chaired last year.
Assault weapons not only kill; they also intimidate individuals, families, even entire communities. We should not have to wait for another mass murder using such weapons before we act.
Alas, committees of this year's General Assembly session already have killed or deferred dealer-licensing and assault-weapons bills The reason: Allen and Republican legislators are against these reasonable steps.
Many of these same urban and suburban legislators supported one-handgun-per-month last year, in response to public opinion. Public opinion has not changed.
According to a Washington Post poll, 65 percent of Virginians favor banning assault weapons, just as 62 percent support eliminating parole for violent offenders. Clearly, last year's election was not a choice between tough sentences and gun control. Instead it was a strong affirmation that crime must stop, and that the public supports both the prison and the gun strategies.
I agree with Governor Allen and others that gun legislation alone will not solve our crime problem. But a crime policy that ignores guns lacks credibility.
\ O. Randolph Rollins, state secretary of public safety in the Wilder administration, is a partner in the RIchmond law firm of McGuire Woods Battle & Boothe.
by CNB