Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 9, 1995 TAG: 9502090080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The legislation, unanimously endorsed by City Council, was backed by 62 delegates during a final vote Tuesday - but that was five votes short of the two-thirds required for passage.
A two-thirds vote was required instead of a simple majority because the legislation would have amended the city's charter.
``I would hope that it would come back as a piece of legislation that we would be in favor of next year,'' Councilwoman Linda Wyatt said. ``Our parks belong to our children and our families. Why on God's earth would anyone need a gun in a park? ... Last time I checked, there were no wildcats or leopards on the loose we have to protect our children from.''
``It was a relatively innocuous bill,'' said Vice Mayor John Edwards, who declared his candidacy for the state Senate on Wednesday. ``When [council] had the public hearing, there was no public opposition whatsoever.''
The bill's sponsor, Del. Clifton ``Chip'' Woodrum, D-Roanoke, blamed the state's gun lobby for the measure's demise.
Woodrum and Del. Richard Cranwell voted for the charter amendment, while Dels. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, and Victor Thomas, D-Roanoke, voted against it.
Under current state law, citizens may carry firearms in municipal parks - and almost any other place - provided they are not concealed. Guns are banned, however, in state parks and in schools.
City Attorney Wilburn Dibling proposed in November that those prohibitions ought to be extended to city parks, and council made it a prominent part of the city's annual ``wish list'' to the General Assembly.
The amendment would have allowed council to enact the ban, exempt police officers and people with concealed-weapons permits from it, and set penalties for violators.
Gun violence has been infrequent in Roanoke parks, although a few incidents have taken place in recent years. Two shootings occurred at the Eureka Park recreation center in 1993, according to the city Department of Parks and Recreation.
One of those incidents was an afternoon shootout between two men in which 35 to 40 rounds of ammunition were sprayed around the center's parking lot. One gunman was injured, and the center and nearby parked cars were damaged.
There was another shooting in Eureka Park in 1991.
``The message we were trying to send is, we won't tolerate it,'' Councilman Delvis ``Mac'' McCadden said.
Woodrum's bill passed the House Cities, Counties and Towns Committee, but failed in the House on ``Crossover Day,'' the deadline for passage.
Even before the session's kickoff, the state's gun interests indicated they would fight the measure. After the session started, Richmond gun lobbyist Tom Evans distributed a letter indicating that the National Rifle Association and the Virginia Firearms Dealers Association opposed the bill.
Evans could not be reached for comment Wednesday. In November, he called it bad policy. Allowing a ban in Roanoke but not in other cities would establish an ``island of jeopardy'' for law-abiding gun owners visiting Roanoke from areas where guns are allowed in parks, he said.
``A lot of people - law-abiding citizens - have a firearm in their automobile,'' said Roanoke's Thomas, one of the legislature's staunchest defenders of gun owners' rights. ``They could be riding down Wiley Drive, and [this would make them] a criminal or whatever.''
It's already illegal to discharge any firearm in city limits, Thomas noted.
But Woodrum argued that the city ordinance could have provided for warning signs at park entrances. Dibling went even further.
``We would have gladly drafted an ordinance so that it would not have applied to unloaded firearms in automobiles,'' he said.
Mayor David Bowers said he's optimistic that the bill may pass the legislature in the future. He noted that it took more than a decade for Congress to enact the Brady Bill, legislation that requires states to do criminal background checks on handgun purchasers.
``New kinds of legislation sometimes take a little while,'' Bowers said.
by CNB