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

DATE: FRIDAY, October 22, 1993                   TAG: 9310280358
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ROYCE L.B. MORRIS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FARRIS OWES GUN VICTIMS AN APOLOGY

OVER THE PAST several weeks, I heard that Mike Farris, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia, had been reported as stating that the gun control he supported was ``steady aim, squeeze the trigger and hit your target.'' My reaction was that no person, especially a candidate for such a significant office, could actually have been so callous and so insensitive to so many people in Virginia.

The Oct. 10 edition of the Roanoke Times & World-News indicates that he is indeed this callous and insensitive. The news story by Dwayne Yancey (``For Farris, it's open season on Democrats'') states in part:

``What are your views on gun control?'' Sam Brown wanted to know. Farris grinned, looked around to make sure others in the crowd heard him, and said, ``I've been quoted in the papers saying, `the only kind of gun control I believe in is hitting your target.'''

I want him to know that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Virginians and other Americans whose lives and families have been shattered beyond repair by persons who controlled their guns in the manner he urges. My family is one of them.

My nephew, a rising senior at a small private college located many miles from Virginia, was a Division III All-American football player, and was headed for Phi Beta Kappa his senior year. He was a young man who, his athletic and intellectual abilities aside, was a kind and gentle human being, but was randomly selected (according to those who attacked him) and fatally shot less than two blocks from his college campus. They shot him with a pistol purchased only weeks before in Virginia.

But they were persons in whom Farris could take pride. They apparently took ``steady aim, squeeze[d] the trigger and hit [their] target.'' The fact that it took three shots before he was fatally hit was probably due to the fact the shooters were chasing him at a fairly high rate of speed, and a steady aim may have been difficult.

I sincerely hope that Farris and all those who support his gun-control position never experience the tragedy and suffering of my family and many others as a consequence of a steady aim, a squeezed trigger and a hit target - and that's all my nephew was, a hit target!

Farris' attempt at Agnewesque humor in his statement is not at all funny, but it's a frightening and offensive display of shallowness for a person in his position.

At the very least, he owes me, my family and many suffering Virginians who are victims of very real violence an apology for his callousness and insensitivity to our very real pain - pain that is being wrought every day on the streets of the cities of Virginia and America.

Royce L.B. Morris of Abingdon is professor of classics at Emory & Henry College.

by CNB