"Virginia lawmakers sent a bill to Gov. Mark R. Warner's desk today that would all but invalidate Alexandria's ban on guns in city buildings and make it illegal for other local governments to adopt similar policies.

The bill would bar localities from adopting laws or rules for gun use that have not been expressly authorized by the state, with one exception: Governments could prohibit their employees from carrying firearms into their buildings.

Senate Bill 593 passed the Senate 26 to 13 and the House 68 to 26 today after a conference committee added that exception. Warner (D), an Alexandria resident, said today he would review it.

If the bill becomes law, it would thwart Fairfax County's longstanding effort to adopt ordinances banning firearms in local government buildings and recreation centers. The county's Democrats in. the General Assembly have tried unsuccessfully to pass legislation to reinstate such a ban since a Circuit Court judge invalidated it four years ago.

Today's legislation, pushed strenuously by gun rights groups for the last three years, is broadly worded, but supporters and opponents say its intent was largely to overturn the policy barring guns from Alexandria's public buildings. The policy was adopted by the city manager in 1995 after a shooting in front of a city recreation center.

'It's not just about the gun owner's rights, it's about the rights of the public to expect protection,' said Sen. Patricia S. Ticer (Alexandria), one of four Northern Virginia Democrats who denounced the bill on the Senate floor.

Ticer chastised the bill's sponsor, Sen. Emmett W. Hanger Jr. (R-Augusta), for letting the National Rifle Association draft a law she said could leave child-welfare workers and others in sensitive government jobs at greater risk. 'He spoke with a script written by the NRA.'

But Hanger and defenders of gun rights said they crafted a compromise that gives local governments some authority to protect their workers, while not infringing on a law-abiding citizen's Second Amendment right to carry a gun.

'If you have someone who works in City Hall or reads parking meters you can tell them that it's not OK to bring a gun to work,' said Hanger, whose original version of the bill exempted Alexandria's rule.

The bill's passage creates a potential political dilemma for Warner. He actively courted support from the NRA during his campaign and said he did not favor further restrictions. But gun restrictions are popular among many leaders in his home town of Alexandria and other parts of Northern Virginia, and late in the campaign he said he'd sign a law banning guns from recreation centers in Fairfax.

Alexandria Mayor Kerry J. Donley (D) said the bill's passage by the General Assembly this year was inevitable after it died on a technicality last year in the legislative session's final hours. But he said today he would 'plead' with Warner to veto it.

'I would hope that he would take a more progressive stance toward this bill,' Donley said.

Rather than a city ordinance, Alexandria's firearms ban is technically an administrative rule that penalizes a violator first with a warning and then with a trespassing charge.

The city prevailed in a court challenge in 1999.

Since it passed, gun rights lobbyists have worked with House Speaker S. Vance Wilkins Jr. (R-Amherst), now Virginia's most powerful lawmaker and leading gun rights advocate, to overturn it. The House killed a bill during this session to ban firearms from the Capitol." (Lisa Rein, The Washington Post, March 9, 2002)