ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 4, 1997 TAG: 9703040059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
FIVE SOUTHERN STATES, with Virginia leading the pack, account for 15 times more crime-related guns in the city than New Jersey does.
Most of the guns used to commit crimes in New York City come from Virginia and four other Southern states along Interstate 95, according to two lawmakers promoting stricter gun control.
U.S. Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., released a report Sunday citing federal figures showing that only one of every 10 weapons used in a New York City crime originates in New York state.
``These gunrunners have turned Interstate 95 into the firearm freeway,'' Schumer said. ``They buy weapons under the loose laws of the South, and then sell them to criminals on our streets.''
Virginia furnished 372 guns - 18.1 percent of the New York City total - according to a recent survey of 2,053 weapons which were traced out-of-state by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Florida, where a Palestinian visitor bought the gun he used a week ago in a deadly shooting spree atop the Empire State Building, furnished 242 guns, or 11.8 percent of New York's total. The next three in line supplying New York were South Carolina, 10.7 percent; North Carolina, 10.5 percent, and Georgia, 9.5 percent. Ohio, with 5.2 percent, was a distant sixth.
Put another way, the five southern states account for 15 times more crime-related guns in New York than New Jersey does, and 14 times more than New England, the lawmakers said.
``Criminals' guns don't come from conveniently located neighboring states, but from the states with weak gun laws,'' Schumer told a news conference outside City Hall.
But Capt. Lewis Vass, director of records management for the Virginia State Police, said Monday that the recent strengthening of Virginia's gun laws has made a difference.
``You have to look at the street age of the firearms they recovered,'' Vass said. ``If you look into the street age, you'll find that they are old weapons purchased a number of years ago. They're not recent purchases.''
He said gun laws passed in the last six years which strengthen identification requirements and limit gun purchases reduced the number of Virginia guns in the state of New York. Under a law that took effect July 1, 1993, a person can buy only one handgun every 30 days. The law was intended to slow gun trafficking.
In 1990, Virginia furnished 15.2 percent of firearms recovered in New York state, said Vass. In 1996, that number dropped to 6.3 percent.
``The figures speak for themselves,'' said Vass.
Schumer, a leading gun control advocate in Congress, sponsored the 1995 Brady Bill to require waiting periods and background checks for gun purchases and led the successful 1994 effort to ban certain types of assault weapons.
``Even as we speak, some gunrunner is buying 100 guns, loading them in the trunk of his car and coming to New York to sell them on street corners, and in a few days they will be used to hurt somebody,'' he said in a telephone interview.
He said proposals in Congress this year could tighten federal gun control laws by requiring a ``national gun card,'' similar to a driver's license, for anyone buying a gun. They could also limit gun purchases to one a month and set tougher standards for legitimate gun dealers to stay in business.
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