Lieut. Gov. Bob Bullock said on Sunday that the Legislature should adopt a gun control law based on that in Virginia, which is generally considered by gun control advocates as the best state law now in effect.
Under Virginia’s law, instantaneous checks on the backgrounds of prospective handgun buyers are conducted. Since its adoption, the law has halted the sales of 1,475 guns, or about 1.6 percent, of the 90,655 firearms transactions that were checked since the program went into effect in 1989. Attempt to Copy Killings
A spokesman for Mr. Bullock, Rafe Greenley, conceded that the Legislature might have a difficult time approving tougher gun control laws “because gun control in Texas is not popular.” And other state officials said that because the Legislature would not meet again until January 1993 interest in toughening the state’s gun control law as a result of the deaths here would likely wane.
In Lampasas County, which is near Killeen, the Sheriff’s Department said today that a 27-year-old man had been arrested on Friday in the town of Kempner as he apparently tried to copy the mass killings at Luby’s Cafeteria. According to a statement by the Sheriff’s Department, Daniel Bobb, an auto mechanic and construction worker, threatened employees and patrons at a private restaurant and attempted to ram his truck through the steel frame of the club’s front door. He went home, the authorities said, and called the club where he told an employee that “the Luby’s massacre won’t be anything compared to what I’m going to do.”
Employees called the Sheriff’s Department and three deputies arrested Mr. Bobb at his home at 3 A.M. Friday. He was charged with terroristic threats and criminal mischief, both felonies. A spokesman for the department said Mr. Bobb was being held in the Lampasas County jail in lieu of a $6,000 bond. He is scheduled for arraignment on Oct. 29.
The authorities were investigating a motive for the man’s threat, and declined to say whether he was armed or possessed firearms at his home. Officers Describe Killings
In their first public statements since the mass killings at Luby’s Cafeteria last Wednesday, three police officers described today their arrival at the scene after Mr. Hennard, 35, had rammed his pickup truck through the restaurant’s plate glass windows and then calmly stalked diners to shoot.
At the news conference today, police Investigator Kenneth Olson, 35, said he was was the first officer to shoot at Mr. Hennard, after the gunman refused to surrender and fired a shot at him. Investigator Alex Morris, 49, said he joined in the shooting from the side of the restaurant, shooting at Mr. Hennard through a window broken out by a patron who escaped.
“He told us he was not going to give up,” said Mr. Olson, whose gunfire, along with that from Mr. Morris, backed Mr. Hennard, who already had been wounded twice by police fire, into an alcove near the restrooms. “He told us he had hostages, but he didn’t because we could see him,” said Mr. Morris.
The officers said they were so close to the gunman that they could see him wide-eyed and visibly frightened. The incident ended when Mr. Hennard shot himself in the right temple.
