PART 2 of 2 Parts
commercials airing this weekend features U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, a
Republican,  urging state lawmakers to "stiffen their backs, stiffen
the law and stiffen the penalties."
   The NRA, which has 90,000 Virginia members, won't disclose how
much it is spending in its lobbying effort, although it will have to
report its expenditures later in the year. It spent $136,710 in the
last legislative election, in 1991, contributing to 49 of the 140
winning candidates and to 20 losers.
   The NRA gets personal with the governor. Its radio and newspaper
ads question Wilder's commitment to controlling crime, saying that
as a state senator he "voted against mandatory jail time for
gun-toting criminals, even against the death penalty for mass
murderers."
   Facing off with the NRA, Wilder has enlisted a team that includes
the Republican federal prosecutor for eastern Virginia, Richard
Cullen, and leading business executives, educators and health care
professionals.
   More than 40 organizations, including the Greater Washington
Board of Trade, the Virginia Parent-Teachers Association, the
Arlington County Civic Federation and the Northern Virginia Planning
District, have endorsed the measure. So too have the editorial pages
of the state's largest newspapers.
   Each side has its own cartoon character. The NRA's Eddie Eagle
instructs schoolchildren on gun safety. A Batman comic book, sent to
each lawmaker by Wilder, deplores the easy access to guns in
Virginia.
   Each side also has its own celebrities. A crowd of 1,200 people
cheered Wayne R. LaPierre, the NRA's chief executive officer, at a
rally on the Statehouse lawn two weeks ago.
   Sarah Brady, wife of former White House press secretary James
Brady, who was shot in the assassination attempt on President Ronald
Reagan a dozen years ago, came to town to debate an NRA board
member. This weekend, she has been leaving phone messages urging
lawmakers to vote for the bill.
   The  lobbying has  caused some lawmakers to reexamine long-held
positions on gun control.
   Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr. (R-McLean) has been one of the most
reliable supporters of the gun lobby during his quarter-century in
the House. The NRA, which grades legislators, gave him an A-plus in
his last election campaign.
   But this week, Callahan is likely to get a failing grade from the
NRA, because he has decided to support Wilder's bill.
   Suburban Republicans such as Callahan probably hold the key to
the outcome. Urban Democrats in the General Assembly are solidly in
favor of gun control, while most rural legislators, regardless of
party, are opposed.
   Callahan said he doesn't believe that Wilder's bill, or the
Republican alternative, will solve the problem of handgun violence.
But, he said, "it's gotten to the place where you've got to respond"
to the public outcry for action.
   "We can't come out of this session with nothing," said Callahan,
whose seat in the 100-member House of Delegates, like those of all
the other delegates, is up for election in November.
   Although not an NRA member, Callahan believes that "rank-and-file
NRA members are reasonable people. I hear from a lot of NRA members
who support one gun a month."
   Del. William C. Mims (R-Leesburg), one of a half-dozen Northern
Virginia Republicans who accepted an average of $1,700 from the NRA
in the 1991 election campaign - said he looked at himself in the
mirror last year and decided there are "sound policy reasons" for
limiting gun purchases.
   Mims said he retains "cordial relations" with the NRA, "but on
this issue, we disagree."