SHIFTING COSTS ONTO VIRGINIANS

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

DATE: SATURDAY, March 6, 1993                   TAG: 9303080748
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
SHIFTING COSTS ONTO VIRGINIANS
ACCORDING to U.S. News & World Report, federal law already requires that the sale of more than one handgun to an individual in a period of five business days must be immediately reported to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Instead of footing the cost of firearms law-enforcement and incarceration out of their own bloated, red-ink budget, the feds instead promoted a Virginia handgun law simply to shift the costs of locking up New York felons onto Virginians.
The handgun law is not about crime but about who will pay to house and feed out-of-state criminals, and about how job-seeking governors win federal friends at the expense of citizens' property and liberty.
Those who can read plain language believe the Bill of Rights codified the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms, to be safe from search and seizure without issue of a warrant upon sworn cause, and to have all those rights not specifically granted to the federal government or to the states. Those who believe they have these rights today are ignorant or asleep. JAY RUTLEDGE ROANOKE

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB