THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 14, 1996 TAG: 9606140580
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 35 lines
Virginia's one-handgun-a-month law has significantly reduced the illegal trafficking of firearms from the state to the Northeast, says a Journal of the American Medical Association report.
The report was based on a study conducted by the Washington-based Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. The results were included in this week's issue of the journal.
The study compared data from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on weapons recovered in connection with criminal investigations before and after Virginia enacted its one-handgun-a-month law.
Under that law, which took effect July 1, 1993, a person can buy only one handgun every 30 days. Before then, people could buy unlimited numbers of handguns from licensed dealers.
``The law was passed in response to Virginia's growing reputation as a principal supplier of guns to the illegal market in the northeastern United States,'' the report says.
The researchers, Douglas S. Weil and Rebecca C. Knox, at the center said that in four years before Virginia's law went into effect, 35 percent of the 3,200 guns seized in northeastern states were traced to Virginia. Those states included New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
In the nearly two years following the law, Weil and Knox said, 16 percent of the more than 900 guns seized in those states came from Virginia.
They noted that the ATF has labeled Interstate 95 as one of the nation's main gun-trafficking routes.
KEYWORDS: HANDGUN LAW VIRGINIA STUDY
by CNB