Are gun laws tough enough-

PETER HARDIN / WSLS NewsChannel 10
Published: April 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - On stricter federal gun controls, Reps. James P. Moran of Northern Virginia and Virgil H. Goode Jr. of Rocky Mount are miles apart.

One calls passionately for renewal of a U.S. ban on assault-style weapons.

The other volunteers the importance of self-defense and talks with interest about Virginia looking at ways to let some people besides police carry guns on campus.

Moran, a liberal Democrat, and Goode, a conservative Republican, are starkly contrasting faces of the gun-control debate that is likely to surface in the Capitol soon.

Their strongly held, clashing views hint at just some of the obstacles ahead if Congress weighs stricter gun-control laws in response to the Virginia Tech massacre.

Moran supports extending a ban on assault-style weapons that a Republican-controlled Congress let expire in 2004.

He thinks that ammunition used by Seung-Hui Cho in shooting students and faculty at Virginia Tech would have been included under that ban.

"I think our gun laws today are irrational," Moran said. "Because we're the most heavily armed civilized nation on the planet and as a result, far more Americans are killed by guns than in any other civilized nation."

Goode, on the other hand, declares up front in an interview, "I'm for the individual to be able to protect themselves."

If the pilots of airliners hijacked by terrorists on Sept. 11 had been armed, "they could have perhaps stopped some of the hijackers," Goode said.

And Virginia ought to look at a way, he said, for U.S. citizens to be able to carry a gun on campus if they possess a concealed-weapons permit.

In the Virginia General Assembly, some legislators have sought measures, unsuccessfully, that would give students and employees with concealed-handgun permits at public universities the right to carry their weapon on campus.

Moran rejected emphatically letting students and professors carry weapons on campus.

"I think it's nuts," Moran said. "This is not the Wild West. This is the 21st century. And I don't think we should be arming the student body and teachers just because we don't have the guts to pass rational gun-control laws."

Goode's largely rural 5th District abuts the 9th, where Virginia Tech is located in Blacksburg, and it takes in much of Southside. Moran representing the 8th District, lives in Arlington County in the more liberal Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington.

Moran said he doubted that the Virginia Tech killings would significantly alter the dynamics of the gun-control debate in Washington because of the power of the National Rifle Association. It's one of the most influential lobbies, successfully undermining legislation and also helping defeat incumbents.

Democrats traditionally have been in the forefront of efforts to pass gun-control legislation, but many of them were reticent to discuss whether the massacre will be a catalyst to new legislation.

For example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., cautioned against a "rush to judgment" on stricter gun control.

And some Democrats in the new majority are allies of gun owners, or are gun owners themselves.

Two of them are Rep. Rick Boucher of the 9th and Virginia Sen. Jim Webb. Both men declined to be interviewed this week on gun-control issues, their aides saying it was too soon after the Virginia Tech tragedy.

Webb has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, a fact that was highlighted when a top Webb aide was arrested recently after police said he tried to carry a loaded handgun into a Senate office building.

Contact staff writer Peter Hardin at or (202) 662-7669.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.