By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 19, 2006; C01

RICHMOND -- Midway through the Virginia legislative session, the House of Delegates has sent to the state Senate a series of bills that would make it easier for residents to acquire and carry guns, including a measure that would prohibit companies from banning guns in their parking lots.

The exercise is an annual ritual, as supporters of gun rights urge less restrictive and, they say, more uniform state rules, and opponents counter that their proposals would endanger public safety.

The parking lot bill, part of a nationwide push by the National Rifle Association, would require businesses, including restaurants, to allow employees and customers to keep guns in their cars on company property. Many U.S. businesses have enacted rules banning guns in cars in response to workplace shootings.

Another bill would prohibit the governor from restricting gun rights during any kind of state emergency. Its sponsor said he was disturbed by reports from New Orleans that suggested that law enforcement officers were confiscating weapons from law-abiding citizens in response to violence following Hurricane Katrina. A third measure would make it harder for local governments to pass ordinances regulating hunting.

The General Assembly had an unusual incident this year involving a handgun. Del. John S. "Jack" Reid (R-Henrico) accidentally fired a handgun last month in his General Assembly Building office. No one was hurt.

Those pushing the bills say Reid's mishap, as well as Vice President Cheney's hunting accident, will have little effect on the conversation over gun regulation in Virginia.

"It's irrelevant," said Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter (R-Prince William), who is sponsoring the parking lot bill. "Most serious observers of legislation are able to differentiate between a national news story and practical application of a common-sense gun law."

Still, the incidents could make their way into Senate committee testimony. A lobbyist for the Virginia Travel and Hospitality Association, which opposes Lingamfelter's bill, said she plans to note the accidents in arguing that businesses should have the right to limit guns rather than invite accidents on their property.

The bill has been a top NRA priority nationally since 12 workers were fired from a Weyerhaeuser paper mill in Oklahoma after guns were found in their cars in violation of company policy in 2002. Last year, several large businesses, including the ConocoPhillips oil and gas company, filed a federal lawsuit against a similar bill passed in Oklahoma in response to the incident, arguing that it conflicts with federal laws that require companies to establish a safe workplace. There has been no decision in the case.

Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said ConocoPhillips is exactly the kind of company that would be interested in a no-gun policy.

"Why would a company that holds large amounts of gasoline in large vats possibly want to limit guns in its parking lots?" he joked. "It's scary to what end the NRA will go."

But Joel Partridge, Virginia liaison for the organization, said that workplace shootings are an anomaly and that citizens who carry guns legally should be able to do so when they go to work or go shopping.

"We're working to protect the rights of the people who work," he said. "They're law-abiding people, and they have the right to defend themselves."

Under the proposed Virginia law, gun owners would have to lock their cars, and businesses would be held legally blameless in accidents or crimes involving guns in their lots. Businesses could still make rules for parking areas where access is limited by a gate or security booth.

Lingamfelter said parking lot prohibitions make the constitutional right to carry guns difficult at a practical level.

"If people start putting parking lots off-limits, the de facto situation will be that people have one of two choices: either leave their guns at home or not be able to park there," he said.

He suggested that rules to ban guns in lots are part of a coordinated effort to take away rights.

"There are groups that are virulently anti-gun, and they're looking for strategies to take on these evil guns," he said.

The proposed legislation will now be heard by the Senate's Courts of Justice Committee, where such bills sometimes die.

Sen. Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax), a longtime proponent of gun control and a member of the committee, said that he is not yet familiar enough with the House bills to know how he will vote but that Virginia has long been too permissive regarding guns.

"This is the biggest pro-gun state in America," he said. "I think if there was a bill to require every home to come with a surface-to-air missile, it'd pass."

To become law, the gun bills would have to be approved by the full committee and the Senate before going to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) for signature or veto. The session is scheduled to end on March 11.

Staff writer Michael D. Shear contributed to this report.