How 3 very different advocacy groups agreed on a challenge to NC’s gun law
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- Three advocacy groups backed a challenge to NC’s felony gun ban via amicus briefs.
- Briefs say the blanket felon ban overcriminalizes many nonviolent offenses.
- Case challenges the law under the Second Amendment and urges narrower felony scrutiny.
Three advocacy groups of different political flavors have publicly expressed support for an ongoing challenge to a North Carolina gun law.
The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, the Cato Institute and Grass Roots North Carolina, which all have varying ideological beliefs, argued that it is unconstitutional to forbid people with felony convictions from possessing firearms.
The groups said the felony classification is too broad, and a blanket ban is overcriminalization.
State law says felons can’t “purchase, own, possess, or have in the person’s custody, care, or control any firearm or any weapon of mass death and destruction.” The law includes mufflers and silencers, but excludes antique guns.
Matthew Cavedon is the director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice. He said that while the institute and the ACLU “don’t always see things eye to eye, including on Second Amendment issues, ... we both agree that if the government is going to take away somebody’s liberty, it needs to have strong reasons for doing so.”
The ACLU of North Carolina and the Cato Institute filed a joint amicus brief on March 27. Grass Roots NC filed its brief three days later.
Representatives from the three organizations said many people loop all felonies into a far-too-broad violent category.
In North Carolina, you can be charged with a felony for digging up and taking a Venus flytrap plant or seed with the intent to steal it from public land or someone’s property. Taking pine needles from someone else’s land under certain circumstances is also a felony, according to state law.
The briefs were written for a case involving Eric James Ducker, who was indicted in 2023 for the possession of a firearm by a felon. Ducker in Buncombe County District Court had pleaded guilty in 2009 to a nonviolent felony offense: attempting to flee to elude arrest.
Ducker had no other felony convictions, according to court documents.
Before the trial in 2023 in Buncombe County Superior Court, Ducker filed a motion to dismiss the indictment and claimed that the law was unconstitutional. A trial court denied that motion, and Ducker was convicted of the crime by a jury.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals last year unanimously ruled against Ducker on an appeal. The opinion cited rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court such as District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, which described the Second Amendment right as one enjoyed by “law-abiding, responsible citizens.”
The N.C. Court of Appeals said Ducker in 2009 pleaded guilty to the felony charge with aggravating factors like driving recklessly and speeding more than 15 miles per hour.
The opinion noted that Ducker has a 2017 conviction for violating a domestic violence protective order.
On a different appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court, Ducker is again challenging the law’s constitutionality in three different ways.
The appeal challenges whether the law is unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, under the North Carolina Constitution, and as it was applied to Ducker under the Second Amendment.
Several state and federal cases are referenced in the appeal, including New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in 2022 that some of New York’s requirements to carry a firearm in public violated the Second Amendment based on the right to bear arms in public for self-defense purposes.
Differing points of view
Cavedon of the Cato Institute, which promotes libertarian ideas, said organizations found common ground on Ducker’s case since the qualification of having a felony conviction is too broad to justify a lifetime ban.
“Groups may agree or disagree on the scope of what the Second Amendment should be, but we all fortunately agree on this case, that the classification is just not a rational way of addressing public safety needs,” he said.
Volunteer organization Grass Roots NC is focused on preserving the Second Amendment and gun rights. The group calls itself the state’s “only ‘no compromise’ gun rights organization.”
Paul Valone, its president, said the group tends to lean conservative. He said Grass Roots NC advocates for broader, constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, but mostly focuses on Second Amendment-related projects.
Grass Roots NC since 1994 has drafted and helped pass pro-gun legislation, Valone said. He said the organization believes, in relation to Ducker, that “there should be additional scrutiny applied to which felonies would deprive someone of their rights.”
He added that groups with differing ideologies are probably giving their support due to a fear of overcriminalization.
“I would have to say that, in most cases, a violent felony would probably preclude exercising Second Amendment rights,” Valone said. “But nonviolent felonies ... we should take a good, long, hard look at that. And that’s what this case encourages the North Carolina Supreme Court to do.”
Jacqueline Landry, a legal fellow for the ACLU of North Carolina, said felony gun-possession laws in the state “further the cycle of incarceration, and they do so without a benefit to public safety.”
The ACLU is nonpartisan but often advocates for policies that align with liberal or progressive agendas, including reproductive rights and racial justice.
Landry said the groups are happy to present a united front when they can be aligned on civil liberties issues.
Cavedon said he wants people to “think twice before we assume that all felons are menaces to society who need to be stripped of their rights.”
“Folks are going to have disagreements about what is appropriate around gun control. We know that,” he said. “But if the state is going to take away somebody’s rights, it should be doing so based on real public safety concerns.”
