Wake sheriff, activists speak against bill that would end pistol permits in NC

The Wake County sheriff joined gun policy experts, and local activists virtually Wednesday to oppose a bill that would end pistol permits in the state.

Under state law, handgun buyers must obtain a permit from a local sheriff and undergo a background check. But House Bill 398, which is headed to Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk, would repeal the permit requirement.

The bill’s supporters argue the law is “obsolete” and that the state should rely on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a federal service that conducts background checks on firearm purchasers, The News & Observer previously reported.

On Wednesday, Becky Ceartas, executive director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, called the permit law the “backbone of public safety in North Carolina.”

“We are dealing with a public health crisis,” she said.

The bill’s sponsors are all Republicans. Only two House Democrats voted for the bill, while just one Republican voted against it.

Gerald Givens Jr., president of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP, said the issue should not be partisan.

“This issue is not about Democrats. It’s not about Republicans,” he said. “It’s about us doing the work that we can to prevent homicides as well as suicides.”

On Tuesday, Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, called the permit law “one of our most effective tools to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, felons and other dangerous people.”

“This bill would remove sheriffs’ role in granting permits, taking away their ability to protect the people in their communities and making it easier for people who are dangerous to buy pistols,” he said in a statement.

The Senate approved HB 398 Wednesday in a 27-20 vote, sending it to the Democratic governor for his consideration.

Gun homicides, suicides and permit laws

In a release ahead of the news conference, opponents of HB 398 cited a 2019 study that found firearm homicides increased 17% to 27% in Missouri after the repeal of the state’s permit-to-purchase handgun law in 2007.

Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said firearm homicide rates and suicides dropped significantly from expected levels in Connecticut after the state passed a licensing law like North Carolina’s.

The opposite has been true since Missouri’s repeal, he said. From 2008 until 2016, Webster said another study showed firearm homicide rates there were 47% higher than what would have been expected had the state not repealed its permit requirement. From 2008-2017, firearm suicide rates were 24% higher, he said.

Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker, the sole law enforcement representative at Wednesday’s news conference, said stronger gun laws are needed to cut down on violent crime in the state.

The Sheriff’s Office was sued last year over processing delays during an unprecedented spike in permit applications. State law requires that the office process those applications within 14 days.

The Sheriff’s Office had issued 47,000 permits to Wake County residents as of November, up from 12,616 in 2019 and 12,229 in 2018, The N&O reported at the time.

“(We) must be willing to go through a few more hoops” to prevent firearms ending up in the wrong hands, Baker said Wednesday.

Ceartas said state legislators could explore allowing permits from neighboring counties or giving local sheriffs more resources, rather than repealing the requirement altogether.

Gun violence in Raleigh has increased this year, with both homicides and crimes involving guns higher than in each of the previous two years.

“I am here. This office is here,” Baker said of his presence at the news conference. “Total support.”

State efforts to strengthen background checks

North Carolina is one of only a few states that requires background checks for private sales of handguns, which include all transactions outside of a licensed dealer.

Federal law requires background checks through NCIS, but cannot require states to send it information, The N&O previously reported.

The system verifies that the buyer does not have a criminal record or isn’t otherwise ineligable to purchase or own a firearm. In North Carolina, courts can ban domestic abusers from buying guns.

But some records, particularly mental health records, can be missed due to incomplete reporting.

In 2018, Cooper assembled a National Instant Criminal Background Check System working group to help close the gaps in firearm background checks, The N&O reported. Just one year later, Cooper issued an executive directive to continue building on that work.

He said at the time that the working group had helped add “more than 284,000 convictions ... to the federal background check system.”

Ceartas said she and others have called on Cooper to veto HB 398.

Sheriffs’ Association backs bill

In April, Eddie Caldwell Jr., executive vice president and general counsel of the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association, told The N&O that improvements in the national system had led the association to now support the bill.

“The NICS check has done to pistol permits what email has done to the fax machine: that is, made it obsolete,” he said then. “The NICS check is more thorough.”

The Sheriffs’ Association support of the bill came from a vote by its executive committee, The N&O reported.

But Baker said he does not support the legislation.

“I’ve made it clear that I don’t support those bills,” he said Wednesday, when asked about the association. “A majority vote doesn’t always represent everybody.”

This story was originally published August 18, 2021 at 12:18 PM.