The Virginian-Pilot
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, February 19, 1996              TAG: 9602160010
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   65 lines

CHILDREN AND GUNS IN VIRGINIA MOWED DOWN

A 13-year-old fatally shot a 14-year-old recently in Virginia Beach. The setting was a ranch-style house near Bow Creek Municipal Golf Course. Children shoot children, and adults, every day in the United States. An average of 15 Americans below age 19 die daily of bullet wounds. Some are homicides. Some are suicides. Some are accidentally shot.

The gun lobby says children shooting children doesn't happen as often as it once did. Perhaps successful lawsuits against adults who leave guns where children can get to them are having a salutary impact. But more needs to be done, and reasonable people ought to be able to agree on prudent steps to counter gun use by juveniles.

Requiring dealers to sell or transfer handguns equipped with (1) trigger-locking mechanisms or (2) separate trigger locks for handguns that do not incorporate a locking feature in their design would help curb shootings by children. Yet the House of Delegates Courts of Justice Committee has just ``passed by indefinitely'' a bill mandating trigger locks. Violation of the statute would have been punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Another bill proposing to raise to 16 the age at which Virginia youngsters might without supervision lawfully use firearms for which adults are responsible was ``passed by indefinitely'' by a House Courts of Justice subcommittee. That rural legislators, mindful of how many youths are permitted unsupervised use of rifles and shotguns in farm country, had a problem with the word ``firearms'' is understandable. But surely barring children below age 14 from unsupervised use of ``handguns'' ought not be troubling. The House panel could have altered the bill's language. It didn't. ``PBI'' was the bill's fate.

The gun lobby has as many friends in the General Assembly as ever - possibly more since the November elections - and a veto-armed champion in the Governor's Mansion to boot. Legislating reasonable restraints on firearms-dealing is an uphill battle in Richmond.

Seemingly the gun lobby hasn't enough friends to repeal, as it is itching to do, the one-handgun-sale-per-person-per-month law pushed through the General Assembly during Gov. L. Douglas Wilder's administration.

Thanks to that law, the Old Dominion is no longer notorious as the leading supermarket for gun traffickers. They formerly bought carloads of firearms legally in the state for resale illegally in Washington, D.C., and the Northeast. Maryland now bears the stigma. So there's talk in Annapolis of emulating Virginia.

Obviously, the Virginia law should stay on the books, but don't assume it will. The gun lobby never sleeps. It has the real financial interests of gun manufacturers, importers and dealers to protect, which it achieves by fanning the fears of millions of gun owners, who in turn can be counted on to overwhelm most gun-control efforts.

Most - not all. Handgun Control Inc. nationally and Virginians Against Handgun Violence speak for ordinary men and women alarmed by the harm inflicted - accidental and intentional - by guns in the wrong hands. They have won some battles.

Not enough. No other ``civilized'' country not engaged in war suffers so much gun-linked bloodshed. It's an uphill battle to arouse the unpassionate majority against the zealous gun lobby. But in the protracted campaign for a safer America, it's the humane side to be on. by CNB