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

DATE: SUNDAY, June 18, 1995                   TAG: 9506210066
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: VIRGINIA   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`I HAD ALWAYS KEPT A GUN IN MY CAR'

His plan turned to action last year after the Roanoke man was pulled over for speeding. As Marchant reached into his glove compartment to get his registration papers for the police officer, his Glock .40-caliber handgun fell out and landed on the floor.

"I had always kept a gun in my car," he said.

Marchant, 31, was charged with having a concealed weapon. But when he went to court, the judge agreed to dismiss the charge if Marchant got a permit to keep his gun in the glove compartment.

After explaining to a judge that his job in sales required him to carry large amounts of money, often at night and in bad parts of town, Marchant was granted the permit.

Most of the time, he says, the gun will stay where it was before - in his glove compartment.

"I'm not out there trying to be Wyatt Earp or something," Marchant said. "I respect the gun, and I respect other people."

Her reasons were

always the same

Linda Jean Hiner Campbell, 34, of Botetourt County had a concealed weapon permit for seven years. Last year, it was denied.

"They told me that my reasons weren't good enough," she said. "I'm disappointed."

What mystifies her is that her reason for needing the permit remained the same as when the permit was approved several times. Her husband, a Roanoke firefighter, stays away from home 24 hours at a time.

"If I go out by myself, I like to carry my weapon with me for my family's protection," she said. The Campbells have a 20-month-old son.

Campbell, who got married in 1990, first was authorized a permit while she was single. "My reason was good enough then," she said. "I just said I live alone."

She's willing to wait until the new concealed weapon law goes into effect, even though she could have appealed Circuit Judge George Honts III's decision. "I've been a law-abiding citizen," she said. "I didn't see a reason to take a day out of work to go out there and appeal. Fairly, I should have been given the permit."

|- RON BROWN

'Too many people

... too many guns'

J.R. Huddle, a former stable owner in Roanoke County, applied for a concealed weapon permit in April 1994 and was denied.

Huddle said he requested the permit after he was threatened for testifying in a court case. As the owner of Centura Stables on Martins Creek Road, Huddle, 51, often appeared as an expert witness. He said he wanted the gun to protect himself.

But after the judge denied his application, Huddle reconsidered his position. Weapon laws have gotten too loose, he said, and the court made the right decision in his case.

"Too many people got too many guns," he said. "We've gone a bit too far. It's gotten stupid with this assault weapon stuff. Everybody has a right to have a gun to go hunting, but this other stuff is ridiculous. We just don't need it."

Huddle said he stopped worrying about his right to carry a concealed weapon after he spoke with Circuit Judge Kenneth Trabue. "The judge told me that people who make threats because of court testimony are reacting emotionally. He said it's strictly an emotional thing," Huddle said. "I was denied, but I have no harps about it."

Huddle spoke with the Roanoke Times & World-News about his opinions a month ago. He died two weeks ago after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

|- SARAH HUNTLEY