Senate Commerce Committee to Consider Legislation to Repeal North Carolina’s Law Requiring a Permit to Purchase a Pistol on Tuesday, April 21!

Friday, April 17, 2009


NRA members and other supporters of the Second Amendment must make sure their collective voice is heard!  Please contact members of the Senate Commerce Committee, especially if your Senator is on the Committee, and urge them to support S782!  Contact information for the committee can be found here.

Please also contact your local sheriff and urge him to ask his Association to take either a position of support for S782, or at least be neutral.

S782, introduced by pro-gun State Senator Doug Berger (D-7), is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday, April 21, at 11:00 AM.  This legislation would eliminate the requirement that law-abiding citizens acquire a permit to purchase a pistol from their local sheriff before they may lawfully acquire any pistol.  NRA strongly supports this legislation, and it is our primary legislative objective for this session.  There are numerous problems with this law, both in how it is written, and how it has been implemented.

First, such permits are simply another bureaucratic loop the state requires law-abiding citizens to jump through before exercising our constitutionally protected Right to Keep and Bear Arms.  And why should someone be forced to acquire a permit from a sheriff if they wish to purchase a pistol from a licensed dealer?  The dealer can just as easily run the same background check that is currently run when a rifle or shotgun is purchased.

Second, a permit can be denied if someone fails to prove they are of “good moral character.”  What, exactly, defines “good moral character” is not specifically spelled out under the law, so a sheriff in one county may reject a permit applicant for something he considers to be not of “good moral character,” while a sheriff in another county may not come to the same conclusion.  Uniformity in the exercise of constitutionally protected rights is critical to ensuring rights are not randomly and arbitrarily restricted.  Furthermore, the reasons for denying rights must be carefully spelled out, and of a serious enough nature to warrant such action.

Third, several sheriffs have gone well beyond what the law specifically states, and implemented their own handgun rationing scheme.  Dozens, according to information compiled by the group Grass Roots North Carolina, have set a limit on the number of permits that can be acquired at one time, while more than a dozen go so far as to set a limit on how many permits may be issued in a year.  Some set the standard as low as two permits per year!  Nowhere in the statute that establishes the permit system does it say anything about sheriffs being able to limit the number of pistols a law-abiding citizen may acquire.

Anti-gun extremists are already contacting Senators in opposition to this bill, and they will likely do everything they can to defeat it.  The North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association has apparently come out in opposition to the legislation, but NRA has been working with that organization, and will continue to do so, to try to change its position.



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ALET! ALET! ALET!

Sorry, I have to do that when I see alert.

Go NC! I wish they would do the same in NY fuck that gay ass permit process for handguns.

Good luck NC.

Yes, perhapse we will get rid of this freaking Jim Crow Law.  Probably not as it is money for the dept.  When I got my purchase permits I had to pay for a background check ( despite the fact that I teach in the county) and then had to fill out a form and pay to get them.  Total time for the dept               5 minutes for the check, 30 seconds for the form and 30 seconds for a signature.  I believe it cost me 40 bucks or so.

So call and contact your legislators..............NOW

The sheriff depts don't want to give it up because its giving them more staff, budget, and $5 for every one of us poor souls that buys a pistol.  Sometimes its a one hour wait...sometimes its a THREE WEEK wait for one of those permits (depending on your county).   RIDICULOUS!  Good job NRA! =D

It's not the five dollar fee that they want- that barely covers the process of administering the permit I'm sure its not a profit maker at all

It's the jobs that might be lost

You have to have a permit just to buy a pistol?

That has to suck.

And a crossbow

Not if you have CCW.

Interested to see how this turns out, I miss NC but w/ all the libtards showing up I'm glad I'm in AK now.

Jim Crow law.

I had to get a backgroud check ($15) and fill out an application and submit references of my good upstanding stature while I was employed at the local police department.  Then had to wait 10 working days while they processed my application.  Then paid $5 each for a maximum of 5 permits.  Plus, in Onslow County, persons selling a pistol are required to send the pistol purchase permit (with make, model & serial number) back to the sheriff after the sale.  De facto registration.

21 years in the Marines and working at the police department (at the time) and I had to ask permission to purchase a pistol.  Total BS.

Let's get this legislation passed!!!

-KW

www.ncleg.net

Here in lincolnton, you go to the SO and fill out the app. Wait for the background check, then pay $5 per permit. I was thinkin to myself, i wonder if i could get reimbursed for that?






 

btt

btt

It IS a pain in the ass.  My wife went through the process, and it took some time because we hadn't lived in NC for the last 10 years, so we had to get some data back from Ada Co., Idaho to apply.  Marines have to get a letter from their chain of command saying thay can do so as well.  

Contrast this with Idaho, where I show my concealed weapons license (which was easy and efficient to apply for), and walk out the door with a new handgun.  Oh, I could have applied for a concealed weapons permit in NC too, but it was too much of a hassle to bother with (references, letter from doctor or shrink saying I'm not a loon, etc.).

I hope NC does get the law changed, before all the liberals from up north turn the state into a suburb of NYC.

Time to play the leftists game as well as they play it: "This law is an echo of Jim Crow, and has to be done away with!"

They could easily use VA as a model of how not having it doesn't really cause any trouble.

Great. I called my Senator who is on the Commerce Committee.

That is being used by some people

btt

BTT.

Any news?

-KW

Believe it died

Not sure but I can't find any action on it

BTT

Still has not been heard