A Juxtaposition

Checking my email this afternoon, I found links to two posts regarding the failure to pass HB 189, permitless concealed carry, in North Carolina.

The first is from the NRA-ILA and is a short post about the failure of the bill to meet the crossover deadline.

From NRA-ILA:

This week, HB 189, originally titled the ‘NC Constitutional Carry Act’, moved through several committees in the North Carolina House of Representatives. As drafted, this legislation would have removed unnecessary government permission slips to exercise your Second Amendment rights. ​Unfortunately, the bill was amended in committee to include a mandatory training and education requirement; as a result, the bill was no longer constitutional carry.

The bill title was changed to “Freedom to Carry Act,” but with the legislation facing other concerns, it was taken off of the floor calendar, and failed to meet the crossover deadline to pass the House of Representatives.​

Your NRA-ILA will continue to make it our mission for North Carolina to become a constitutional carry state, and bury any attempts to compromise on the issue.

If you’ve read my earlier posts, you know where I stand on this. I also find it ironic that the NRA says they will not “compromise” given their history of doing just that. Whoever wrote the above ought to ask Wayne about his compromise on 1986’s Firearm Owners Protection Act which may just have helped enrich his BFF.

Liberty Doll has a different take on it. Her videos have just that right amount of sarcasm mixed with cute rockabilly chick libertarian.

With Liberty Doll’s 263,000 followers on YouTube, I would wager she is much more effective in getting her (and gun rights activists in North Carolina’s) side of the story out than the NRA-ILA.

The sad thing in all of this is that the NRA could have been involved from the start and the bill could have passed the NC House. That would have involved working with GRNC and GOA cooperatively and openly in a joint effort to get the bill passed. As it is, the NRA was largely absent. They have one ILA lobbyist, D. J. Spiker, who has to cover North and South Carolina, Maryland, and Virginia. I don’t know whether it is a matter of finances or just mere disinterest combined with negligence but you need more than one person to cover one-tenth of the population of the United States.


4 thoughts on “A Juxtaposition”

  1. The NRA has traditionally counted on their state affiliates to work state level issues rather than doing it directly. Most recently, the NY affiliate was the lead plaintiff in Bruen. In the case of NC, that would be the North Carolina Rifle and Pistol Association. You did not mention them so I wonder if they are still active and involved in the issue in question.

    1. They are still active as far as I know. I see they still have a paid lobbyist listed. However, they did not testify for or against the bill in the Judiciary 2 Committee. From what I’ve heard, they may have had a lobbyist there to review the wording in the bill after it passed out of committee but that would be it.

      Below is the video of the hearing on the bills heard that day. HB 189 begins at about the 26 minute mark and runs to around the 41 minute mark.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYdA_rtoW78

  2. Why allow a testing/education system that permits an un-elected instructor to determine if you can exercise your Constitutional rights? It is a gun controllers dream. I don’t even like the NRA, but the organization got it right, this time.

    1. Exactly. Imagine if, to get a driver’s license, everyone had to qualify as a NASCAR driver.

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