RICHMOND -- A Senate committee voted Wednesday to kill the latest attempt to more tightly regulate sales of weapons at gun shows.

The Senate Courts of Justice Committee rejected Senate Bill 827, with two Democrats, Sens. John Edwards of Roanoke and Roscoe Reynolds of Henry County, joining the Republican majority.

"I think I represent my district on this issue," Edwards said after the vote.

SB 827, carried by Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, R-Fairfax County, would have closed a so-called gun show loophole in state law, under which unlicensed dealers are allowed to sell firearms at gun shows without conducting the criminal background check on buyers required of licensed firearms dealers. The bill would have better defined firearms show vendors and would have required promoters to provide vendors with access to licensed dealers who would conduct the criminal background check on potential customers.

"This bill is not intended to forbid upstanding citizens from obtaining firearms, but it is meant to control the number of criminals who have a venue," Devolites Davis said.

"It is so very easy to go to a gun show and say, 'Are you a licensed dealer? Are you a licensed dealer?' and find one that says no, knowing there won't be a criminal background check."

But Jim Kadison, representing the Virginia Citizen's Defense League, said the bill would restrict the freedom of small, independent firearms dealers.

In the Roanoke Valley, less than a dozen weekend gun shows held each year at the Roanoke and Salem civic centers account for a substantial portion of all gun transactions by licensed dealers.

Of the 11,034 gun transactions last year in the Roanoke Valley, 21 percent were made at nine two-day gun shows held at the civic centers, according to figures from the Virginia State Police. A background check by police was counted as a single transaction, regardless of the number of firearms sold at the shows.

-- Mason Adams, Laurence Hammack

Two Democrats strike meth bills because of a lack of funding

Two bills to further track the sale of ingredients to make methamphetamine were pulled from consideration Wednesday.

Sens. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, and John Edwards, D-Roanoke, voluntarily struck bills to require pharmacies to keep an electronic log for sales of ephedrine, pseudoephedrine or any of their salts or isomers. Those ingredients are used to manufacture methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant.

Pharmacies already are required to keep logs for the sales of those ingredients, which Deeds said has helped reduce the discoveries of meth labs in Virginia by 70 percent over the past year.

An electronic log would help different pharmacies cross check records of purchases.

But Deeds said he and Edwards had trouble finding money to pay for the program, which would otherwise have to be funded by pharmacists and their customers. That's an unfunded mandate, he said.

He said he'll work on the bill over the coming year and hopes to return with it in 2008.

-- Mason Adams

Idea would close loophole letting departing lawmakers file bills

A House of Delegates committee moved Wednesday to close a procedural loophole that allows legislators to file bills after retiring or being defeated for re-election.

The loophole stems from a process the General Assembly established in 2002 to improve legislative efficiency.

Lawmakers are allowed to file an unlimited number of bills during a "prefiling" process that concludes just before the legislature convenes in January.

The current law allows a member of the General Assembly who is retiring or defeated for re-election to file legislation until the convening of the next session, when the legislator's term officially expires.

House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, said the loophole "violates Republican-Democratic principles."

A departing legislator could conceivably get a bill through the next session "if he or she is liked by the majority party," said Griffith, who sponsored legislation (HB 1796) to close the loophole.

Griffith's bill makes it clear that only members and members-elect could file legislation.

The House Rules Committee approved the measure on a voice vote, sending it to the full House for consideration.

-- Michael Sluss