"Fairfax County and Northern Virginia park boards have voted to uphold a long-standing ban on guns in public parks, setting up a potential confrontation with state legislators over a new law that restricts the ability of localities to regulate firearms.

On Wednesday, the Fairfax County Park Authority's board voted 9 to 1 to revise 22-year-old park regulations to "streamline" them and bring them up to date, said Judy Pedersen, an authority spokeswoman. But the board made an exception for a provision governing "firearms, other guns, bows and arrows and other projectile devices," leaving an existing ban intact. The authority operates 371 parks covering nearly 22,000 acres in the county.

The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, which has 19 parks on more than 10,000 acres, adopted its own revisions Thursday, except for an identical ban on firearms. Neither vote was related to the recent sniper shootings in the Washington area, officials said. Proposals for the revised regulations have been under consideration for months.

Under a law passed this year and signed April 4 by Gov. Mark R. Warner (D), localities and their agents are prohibited from taking any action regulating the "purchase, possession, transfer, ownership, carrying or transporting" of firearms or ammunition. The legislation was first introduced by Sen. Emmett W. Hanger Jr. (R-Augusta). It was designed to bar local governments from adopting gun-control ordinances stricter than state law, but it exempted measures on the books before Jan. 1, 1987.

Park authority officials declined to answer questions on whether the existing gun bans in Fairfax County and Northern Virginia regional parks were left intact because they were both approved in 1980, thus predating the new law's effective date.

Attorneys for the county's authority "don't want us to comment on anything that has the potential to be an issue in the future," Pedersen said. She said board members recognized that upholding the ban could be "the most controversial issue they've undertaken" but decided that the existing rule has served the parks well for 22 years.

"A lot of park authorities have a similar ban," she said. "Our intent here was to bring our rules and regulations up to date. . . . Mostly this is a cleanup."

The rule that was retained by both boards from the 1980 regulations says that no person other than a police officer "shall possess in the park a firearm or other gun, unless it is dismantled or contained within a closed case," except in specially designated areas. The exceptions include a skeet-shooting range in Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville.

The two park authorities also contend that they are not bound by the new law because they are not municipalities, but independent authorities. The law applies to a "locality" or "agent of such locality."

"I think a locality in Virginia refers to a county, city or town," said Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple (D-Arlington), who opposed Hanger's bill. She said the parks' gun bans also "should be able to stand" because they fall under the new law's "grandfathering provisions."

"That regulation has been in place for over 20 years, and it's been a help, not a hindrance, to safety in the parks," said Katherine K. Hanley (D), chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. "I would hope that it doesn't run afoul of any other legislation."

But Sen. Leslie L. Byrne (D-Fairfax), who also opposed Hanger's bill, said the park boards' actions were likely to be challenged under the law by pro-gun groups or legislators, either by asking the state attorney general for an opinion or going to court.

"It's going to be a problem to keep sane gun safety measures under that bill," she said. "I'm sure there will be a challenge" to the gun bans.

Hanger did not return phone calls seeking comment on the park boards' actions. The National Rifle Association, headquartered in Fairfax, also did not respond to inquiries about its position on the matter." (William Branigin and C. Woodrow Irvin, The Washington Post, October 26, 2002)