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1993-03-05
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Part 1 of 3 parts
02/26/1993 By Pierre Thomas Washington Post Staff Writer
RICHMOND - As Del. Clinton Miller (R-Shenandoah) debated gun
control in the Virginia General Assembly one recent day, his voice
trembled with anger for members of the National Rifle Association.
"Some of them are nice, but a group of them are hateful,
spiteful, arrogant," Miller said just before a critical vote on
whether to impose a one-a-month limit on handgun purchases.
They were biting words from a lawmaker who had been an avid
supporter of NRA positions, a man who had received an A-plus rating
from the group. And they were words that illustrated how the NRA had
lost friends by taking a hard line against any limit on handgun
sales in Virginia, a conservative state that always had been one of
its strongholds.
After Miller's speech, 20 delegates who held top ratings from the
NRA voted for the bill that the group vehemently opposed. The House
passed the one-gun-a-month bill on its first reading 59 to 41 - a
margin of victory that would have been impossible without support
from lawmakers who once were NRA stalwarts. Ultimately, both houses
passed a compromise version of the bill and sent it to Gov. L.
Douglas Wilder today.
"The NRA is seeing the middle ground on gun control shift away
from it," said Thomas R. Morris, a political scientist and president
of Emory and Henry College in southwest Virginia. "People are
conceding that there are legitimate restrictions that can be put on
gun rights.
"Ten years ago, assembly members wouldn't dare cross the NRA. .
. . Now, they (the NRA) can no longer draw a line in the sand and
know that the legislature won't cross it."
The loss in Virginia could have national implications, eroding
the NRA's image of invincibility at a time when a battle over
handgun control is looming in Congress.
"If you can pass some good measures in Virginia, you can pass
them elsewhere," said U.S. Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York), who
this week reintroduced a bill calling for a national waiting period
for handgun purchases.
NRA officials argue that the loss in Virginia is meaningless. "I
don't see any long-term impact in Virginia," said Wayne LaPierre,
the NRA's chief executive officer. "Nationally, I don't see any
impact. This whole thing was built around a campaign of hysteria.
The media decided this issue."
Though the NRA emerges scarred from the latest battle, no one is
pronouncing it dead. "If the Handgun Control people think that there
has been some earth-shattering movement here, they will be sorely
disappointed," said state Sen. Robert E. Russell (R-Chesterfield).
Whether today's defeat turns out to be significant in the
long-run depends in part on whether the handgun limit actually curbs
gunrunning from Virginia, lawmakers said. If it doesn't, the NRA
will be poised to take advantage of the failure and legislators will
be reluctant to pass more gun control laws that don't work, they
said.