RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina House approved a bill Wednesday that GOP lawmakers say will make it easier for people attending religious services to protect themselves.
House Bill 49, named “Protect Religious Meeting Places,” would change current law to allow people with concealed carry permits to carry handguns to places of worship that also serve as schools, or have attached schools. Guns still wouldn’t be allowed during school operating hours, or if the building has a notice prohibiting concealed carry on the premises.
The bill passed 77-43, with six Democrats joining Republicans in voting for the bill, including Reps. Tricia Cotham of Mecklenburg County, Garland Pierce of Hoke County, Amos Quick of Guilford County, Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe County and Michael Wray of Halifax County.
HB 49 is one of several gun-related measures that moved through multiple House and Senate committees this week. Another bill, which would repeal a state law that requires anyone buying a handgun to obtain a permit from their local sheriff’s office, cleared the final hurdle before a House floor vote on Wednesday, and was set to be voted on by the Senate on Thursday.
Both bills were resurrected last month after being passed in 2021, and vetoed by Gov. Roy Cooper.
Advocates for stricter gun laws have opposed both bills and say that creating an exception to the state law prohibiting guns on school properties and doing away with the permit requirement would make communities less safe.
But bill sponsors say that the permit requirement is a relic of the Jim Crow-era, one that was intended to make it harder for Black people to buy guns, and continues to arbitrarily and unnecessarily infringe on Second Amendment rights.
“What we’re doing is we’re doing away with a law that should’ve been done away with a very long time ago,” Sen. Danny Britt, a Robeson County Republican and primary sponsor of both bills, said during a press conference Tuesday morning.
Several opponents of the two bills spoke against them during the committee meeting, including advocates for stricter gun laws from North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, and the Raleigh-Apex NAACP.
Senators defend repealing pistol permit law
Removing the pistol permit requirement from state law has been a priority for Republicans when it comes to gun legislation. During a press conference Tuesday, GOP senators defended both measures previously vetoed by Cooper as “common-sense legislation.”
Before approving both measures on Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee combined the bills repealing the permit requirement and allowing concealed carry in religious meeting places that are also schools with a third proposal that would launch a two-year statewide awareness campaign to educate people on safe firearm storage.
Critics of the permit repeal have said that requiring a sheriff’s office to sign off on a permit provides an added layer of security and helps prevent guns from getting in the wrong hands.
“Pistol purchase permitting laws save lives by preventing homicides, suicides, mass shootings, domestic violence, and gun trafficking,” Becky Ceartas, executive director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, told lawmakers during the Judiciary Committee meeting.
A key concern raised by some opponents of the bill was whether lawmakers should be getting rid of a system that includes a background check, and applies to all handgun sales. Opponents have pointed out that federal background checks typically only occur if a gun is being bought by a federally licensed dealer, whereas checks conducted as part of the state’s permit law apply to both public and private sales.
Bill sponsors said that most people committing violent crimes aren’t buying or obtaining guns legally, and wouldn’t be stopped by the permit system, which they said imposes a needless burden on ordinary people who want to buy a handgun.
“The majority of the sales that you have going on between private individuals, statistically, are sales from law-abiding citizens,” Britt said during the press conference. “Those folks that are going to go get a pistol purchase permit, they’re not the folks that are going to be committing illegal acts, statistically, at a higher number.”
Proposals advance In House
In the House, Republicans moved through their own versions of the bills, still filed individually instead of rolled into a larger package. House Bill 50, the Pistol Purchase Permit Repeal, passed through the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, along with HB 49.
Over a dozen people for and against the bills lined up outside the small committee room hoping to speak. Sergeants-at-arms limited entry to the room, leaving several activists stuck outside as the bills were debated.
Gerald Givens Jr., president of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP, said he has lost seven family members to gun violence and rejected the idea that repealing the pistol purchase permit would address racism by repealing a Jim Crow-era law.
“Jim Crow is part of the U.S. Constitution, it’s part of the North Carolina Constitution,” he said. “It’s a silly argument.”
Supporters of the bills argued that they would allow churchgoers to protect themselves and remove unnecessary impediments to gun ownership.
Paul Valone, president of Grass Roots North Carolina, referenced the shooting at Michigan State University on Monday where a gunman killed three students and wounded five others.
“What we saw yesterday was yet another example of a gun free zone attracting a violent sociopath,” he said. “We’ve seen it over and over again. Our goal is to shut down these gun free zones and make sure people can protect themselves.”
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