A repeal that would have scrapped a Jim Crow-era law requiring North Carolinians to obtain a permit to purchase a handgun from their county sheriff was vetoed by Gov. Roy Cooper earlier this week. The veto came shortly after the legislation was passed by the state legislature despite zero support from state Democrats.
Current state law requires an individual to present an application, pay a fee, and undergo a background check in order to purchase a handgun. Each of the 100 counties in North Carolina has specific rules for applying to obtain this permit, and each presents its own barrier to the free exercise of Second Amendment rights, but Cooper has now refused to correct this discriminatory law.
This became a crisis of national focus last year when Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker suspended permit applications, citing pandemic concerns. Accommodations were made for nearly every other aspect of life except this one. Baker was unmoved until he faced a lawsuit. He has since agreed to settle the lawsuit and pay damages.
This permit scheme in North Carolina set up Baker as the sole arbiter to grant or deny Second Amendment rights. No single person should be subjectively deciding who gets to exercise the right to keep and bear arms. Any policy that promotes such an anti-American idea is antithetical to the Bill of Rights and a threat to the civil liberties enjoyed in all 50 states.
These permit-to-purchase laws in North Carolina were enacted to prevent black Americans from obtaining firearms. Even after other Jim Crow laws were struck down, this law was preserved and justified as a necessary tool for local law enforcement.
Modern proponents of these laws point to inadequacies of states submitting disqualifying mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. However, that’s an antiquated reason. Mental health records that would disqualify an American from gun ownership are now being included thanks to advances in the background check system. That’s why H.B 398, which would have rolled back the permit requirement, earned the support of the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association.
Because Cooper has decided to veto this legislation, abuses of power akin to the Baker incident will continue to play out in North Carolina. Indeed, pistol permit applications for black North Carolinians in Wake County are currently “experiencing a rejection rate of approximately three times the rate of White applicants.” Members of the National African American Gun Association, or any American, should not have their fundamental civil right of self-defense denied by a sheriff.
Second Amendment rights begin at the gun counter, which is precisely where black Americans took ownership of their gun rights at a 58% higher rate in 2020 than in 2019. There were over 21 million background checks for the sale of guns across the nation, and more than 361,000 of those were in North Carolina.
The time to change this misguided law was years ago, and it is shameful that Cooper had the chance to repeal this holdover from a bigoted past and chose not to. It has been used to deny law-abiding North Carolinians their rights, making them instead subject to a sheriff. The rights of North Carolinians will remain at risk until Cooper removes his head from the sand and relegates this Jim Crow-era law to the past.
Philip Smith is the president of the National African American Gun Association.
