permitless concealed carry Archives

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Permitless Carry Gets Hearing In NC Senate Tomorrow

March 17, 2025

by John Richardson

S.50, Freedom to Carry NC, will get its first hearing in the North Carolina Senate tomorrow morning. It will be one of three bills being considered by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The hearing will be chaired by Sen. Buck Newton (R-Green, Wayne, Wilson) who is a longtime gun rights supporter. More importantly, Senate President Pro-Tem Phil Berger (R-Guilford, Rockingham) is a co-sponsor of the bill meaning it is likely to pass the Senate.

Grass Roots North Carolina issued this alert this evening.

ENCOURAGE KEY SENATE JUDICIARY 2
COMMITTEE REPUBLICANS ON
CONSTITUTIONAL CARRY

About SB 50

As you probably know by now, Senate Bill 50 (“NC Freedom to Carry”) is in the process of becoming NC law. We are very thankful to sponsors Dan Britt, Buck Newton, and Warren Daniel for their 2A Leadership in North Carolina.

We greatly appreciate the support we’ve received from you and the rest of our members thus far, but we must be diligent and make sure the Senate Bill SB50 makes it across the finish line. Below, you will find a message and contact information for several key Senate Republicans. Please contact them so that they know this bill has the support of gun-rights voters like you.

SB 50 will be heard by Senate Judiciary TOMORROW (3/18) at 11:00 AM. So time is of the essence for your e-mails and calls, and attendance at the meeting.

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Push For Permitless Concealed Carry In North Carolina (Updated)

March 10, 2025

by John Richardson 2 Comments

Do you want permitless carry in North Carolina? Do you live in the Piedmont or within an hour or two of Raleigh? Do you have some free time on Tuesday morning?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions then Grass Roots North Carolina needs your help. Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort, Dare, Hyde, Pamlico), primary sponsor of H5 – NC Constitutional Carry Act, is having a joint press conference with House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell & Watauga). GRNC will be there to deliver thousands of your petitions supporting permitless carry.

If the General Assembly passed H5/S50 – and overrides the anticipated veto by Gov. Josh Stein (D-NC) – North Carolina will become the 30th state with permitless concealed carry. It would mean another 11 million people would have Constitutional or permitless carry.

Here are the details from GRNC:

WE NEED YOU FOR
TUESDAY’S PRESS CONFERENCE

We need YOUR help, this Tuesday, to present the Constitutional Carry Petition …

Other than newborn babies, interesting and important things tend to lack a lot of prior notice, and it turns out this Tuesday’s (3/11) pivotal event in our state’s capital is no exception. NC Representative Keith Kidwell, sponsor of HB5 (“NC Constitutional Carry Act”), is getting together with NC’s House Speaker, Destin Hall, this Tuesday for a joint press conference. What exactly makes this presser so important? It turns out that GRNC leaders and supporters (like you) will also be there to present the thousands of ‘Constitutional Carry’ petitions that North Carolinians have signed.

We Need You There
We’re asking you to set aside some time and meet us in Raleigh this Tuesday morning. The “and supporters (like you)” part is only true, and only effective, if you’re actually there, and the more gun rights supporters the better to make the greatest possible impact, so please bring along everyone you can.

The precise time and precise room number is currently unknown, but it will almost surely be before lunch, and in the General Assembly Legislative Building. If there is any chance at all that you can meet us there, it would go a long way in finally bringing constitutional carry to our state. More details are below, with the understanding that updates with precise information will be passed along as soon as they are available. If you can set aside the time, and plan to be at the legislature on Tuesday morning, that’ll do the trick to get things going…

UPDATE: The exact time and place has been announced in a GRNC press release sent out at 2:30pm today. Moreover, Speaker Destin Hall will receive the petitions in person for which GRNC President offered his thanks.

On Tuesday, March 11, at 1:50 PM EDT at Speaker Destin Hall’s office, Legislative Building
Rm. 2304, 16 W. Jones St., Raleigh, NC. GRNC will present 5,000 petition signatures to NC House
Speaker Destin Hall, who has agreed to receive them in person in what we regard as significant
progress in moving the bill.

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NC Legislators: Advance SB50 and HB5 Now!

February 24, 2025

by John Richardson 2 Comments

With Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Guilford, Rockingham) as a co-sponsor of SB50, permitless concealed carry is on the move in North Carolina. This is a big switch from 2023 when Berger said enough pro-gun bills had been passed.

As the Grass Roots North Carolina alert below makes clear, you can help move these bills along. You may need to change the delimiter between email addresses to fit your own email program’s preferences. This is easy to do in MS Word using find and replace. Additionally, I’d suggest using BCC when mailing to the legislators urging the two bills passage in each chamber’s Rules Committee.

From GRNC:

MAKE CONSTITUTIONAL
CARRY NC LAW

Senate Bill 50 (“Freedom to Carry NC”) and House Bill 5 (“NC Constitutional Carry”) are in the process of becoming NC law. We are so thankful to Sen.Berger and Rep Kidwell for their sponsorship and support in this pursuit.

GRNC has been pivotal in this endeavour as we presented a 7,000-signature petition to Berger in a press conference at his office, and thousands of emails were sent to legislators by GRNC supporters.

Additional sponsors for HB 5 are Reps. Jay Adams (R-Catawba, ****), Ben Moss (R-Moore, Richmond, ****) and freshman Brian Echevarria (R-Cabarrus, ****). Additional sponsors for SB 50 are Sens. Danny Britt (R-Hoke, Robeson, Scotland, GRNC ****), Warren Daniel (R-Buncombe, Burke, McDowell ****), and Eddie Settle (R-Alexander, Surry, Wilkes, Yadkin, ****). Both bills are currently in their respective Rules, Calendar and Operations committees.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!

IMMEDIATELY CONTACT REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP: Contact both Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and Speaker Destin Hall to thank them for their support and urge them to give prompt committee hearings to HB 5 and SB 50. Use the links provided in the previous sentence for their contact information. Call and/or email the two leaders to thank them and to encourage them to advance these bills.

IMMEDIATELY CONTACT ALL RULES COMMITTEE REPUBLICANS: Both Rules Committees (for House and Senate) need to hear loud and clear that you want a prompt committee hearing for HB 5 and SB 50. See contact information below.

Please send two messages. Below, find two copy-paste email lists, one for the House and one for the Senate. Below that, find the copy-paste email message.

DONATE TO GRNC: We are still low on funds after our highly successful election effort. Please donate by going to: grnc.org/wp/2012/06/donate-to-or-join-grnc/ NC HOUSE Rules Committee (copy-paste email list):

Reece.Pyrtle@ncleg.gov; Blair.Eddins@ncleg.gov; Brenden.Jones@ncleg.gov; Charles.Miller@ncleg.gov; Donna.White@ncleg.gov; Erin.Pare@ncleg.gov; Jimmy.Dixon@ncleg.gov; John.Torbett@ncleg.gov; John.Bell@ncleg.gov; Karl.Gillespie@ncleg.gov; Kelly.Hastings@ncleg.gov; Kyle.Hall@ncleg.gov; Neal.Jackson@ncleg.gov; Sarah.Stevens@ncleg.gov; Steve.Tyson@ncleg.gov; Ted.Davis@ncleg.gov; Tricia.Cotham@ncleg.gov; William.Brisson@ncleg.gov

NC SENATE Rules Committee (copy-paste email list):

Amy.Galey@ncleg.gov; Benton.Sawrey@ncleg.gov; Bill.Rabon@ncleg.gov; Brent.Jackson@ncleg.gov; Danny.Britt@ncleg.gov; Lisa.Barnes@ncleg.gov; Michael.Lazzara@ncleg.gov; Michael.Lee@ncleg.gov; Norman.Sanderson@ncleg.gov; Paul.Newton@ncleg.gov; Ralph.Hise@ncleg.gov; Todd.Johnson@ncleg.gov; Tom.McInnis@ncleg.gov; Vickie.Sawyer@ncleg.gov; Warren.Daniel@ncleg.gov

DELIVER THIS MESSAGE

Suggested Subject: “Advance Constitutional Carry Bills HB 5 & SB 50” Dear Rules Committee Members:

As a Grass Roots North Carolina member, I thank you for your support and strongly urge you to give a prompt committee hearing to permitless or “constitutional” carry bills HB 5 and SB 50.

Fully 29 states have already adopted constitutional carry, with none of its naysayers’ dire predictions coming true. In fact, the Crime Prevention Research Center finds a small but significant reduction in violent crime among states which adopt permitless carry.

North Carolina Republicans are now lagging their counterparts in other states. Accordingly, I strongly urge you to bring constitutional carry to a prompt committee hearing and floor vote.

I will be monitoring your actions through Grass Roots North Carolina legislative alerts.

Respectfully,

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Battle For Permitless Concealed Carry In NC Starts Again

January 21, 2025

by John Richardson 2 Comments

Grass Roots North Carolina is restarting the battle for permitless concealed carry in North Carolina again. It starts with a petition to the Republican leaders of the North Carolina House and Senate calling on them to start committee hearings and floor votes to bring this legislation forward. No bills have been filed as of yet as the House and Senate do not convene until January 29th.

2025 Constitutional Carry petition (1)Download

People can also sign this petition electronically and it is actually much easier to do it that way. GRNC’s goal is a minimum of 1,000 petitions to present to the GOP leaders of the General Assembly. As I write this, they are 25% of the way to their goal.

You may remember that HR 189 – Freedom to Carry NC Act – had passed its first two readings in the NC House back in 2023 and was headed to a third and final reading when the bill got pulled. As I said at the time, you had your choice on who to blame for the bill being pulled. It could have been then-Speaker Tim Moore who insisted on a training component regarding the use of deadly force, it could have been Sen. President Pro-Tem Phil Berger who had said enough gun bills had been passed, or it could have been the NRA who objected to the bill at the last moment due to the training component.

Frankly, the NRA should never have objected to the bill even with the training component and that is one of the reasons I am running for the NRA Board of Directors. I am determined to see NRA-ILA “play nice” with other 2A organizations even on bills that didn’t originate with them. Objecting to the bill was a NRA v1.0 move and one that NRA 2.0 will hopefully never do.

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Grabbing The Credit

May 4, 2023

by John Richardson 1 Comment

If you read my post from last night, you know that it was not Moms Demand Action, Giffords, Everytown, or North Carolinians Against Gun Violence (sic) who deserves the credit for killing the permitless concealed carry bill, HB 189, in the NC House yesterday. The credit really goes to the people in Fairfax.

Nonetheless, Becky and her minions at NCGV are claiming credit. Below is what they posted to Instagram.

In an email sent out at 1:34pm on May 4th, they said:

HUGE news! We did it: the Permitless Carry bill was WITHDRAWN from the NC House calendar last night! Our volunteers – YOU!! – sent hundreds of emails, phone banked, spread the word on social media, and showed up at the General Assembly to stop HB 189 — all in a few days!
This was not a foregone conclusion: the bill passed two legislative committees in two days, and had been scheduled for a vote last night. It was pulled at the very last minute. So for now, HB 189 is NOT advancing to a full House vote!
We’ll keep watching to make sure this bill does not come back up for a House vote – but today, know that YOU stopped this bill in its tracks!!
Thank you for your support on stopping this dangerous bill – North Carolina is safer today because of you!
Becky Ceartas
Executive Director
North Carolinians Against Gun Violence Action Fund

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NRA May Have Killed Permitless Carry In NC

May 4, 2023

by John Richardson 14 Comments

HB 189 – Freedom to Carry NC Act has been withdrawn from a vote by the full North Carolina House of Representatives and referred back to the House Rules Committee. The bill, formerly known as the NC Constitutional Carry Act, may be dead for this session unless Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-79) can add a fiscal note to the bill. It should be noted that Rep. Kidwell is the Deputy Majority Whip. As noted earlier, the crossover deadline for passage of a bill without a fiscal note is tomorrow, May 4th.

So who is at fault and what happened?

You have your choice.

You can blame Speaker Tim Moore who requested a training component be part of the bill, you can blame the NRA who has now come out in opposition to the bill at the last moment because it includes a training component, or Sen. President Pro Tem Phil Berger who says they’ve done enough on gun rights.

Given the NRA had a chance to testify either for or against the bill during the Judiciary 2 Committee hearing and did not, I think the blame rests more at their feet than that of Speaker Moore. I think Speaker Moore anticipated the opposition from some in law enforcement as well as from the anti-gun lobby and wanted to negate the rationale for their opposition to the bill. As for Sen. Berger, this is not the first time he’s decided to kill attempts at permitless carry. He did it in the 2017-2018 session after it had passed the House because he was afraid of losing his super-majority which he lost anyway.

From the Raleigh News and Observer:

Grass Roots North Carolina, a gun rights group that was one of the bill’s chief supporters, had strongly urged GOP leaders to take it up this week. The group’s president, Paul Valone, said he would continue to work on trying to get the bill passed this session.
Valone indicated that the National Rifle Association had concerns about education requirements that had been added to the bill on Tuesday while it was considered by a House committee.
“We are disappointed that the NRA, which has been largely absent in this session of the General Assembly, swooped in at the last minute and declared the bill unacceptable, due to the training provision we had added,” Valone said. “We are continuing to work on the bill, it is still alive, and we are by no means done.”
D.J. Spiker, the NRA’s North Carolina state director, said in response that the NRA “will never apologize for refusing to compromise on an issue as critical as Constitutional Carry.”

Sen. Berger said as the bill was being removed from the calendar that he thought the Republicans had done enough when they finally got rid of the pistol purchase permit. He also said he didn’t think the timing was right.

From an interview with Michael Hyland of WNCN Channel 17:

“We have passed a substantial bill dealing with some concerns about (the) Second Amendment. We’ve done away with the pistol purchase permit, which was the No. 1 goal of many of the gun rights groups for a long period of time,” Senate leader Phil Berger told reporters. “I just don’t know if if there’s a need for us to delve into additional issues dealing with guns and people’s Second Amendment rights.”

In my estimation, if the NRA had been willing to join with GRNC and GOA in support of the bill, flawed or not, then it would have passed and the NC Senate would have taken up the bill either in 2023 or 2024. As for the NRA’s rationale for opposing the bill of not being willing to compromise their principles, that is a joke. One of the things the NRA always seems willing to do is compromise even when it is not warranted.

I speculate that there was an element of retribution in the NRA’s 11th hour opposition to HB 189. The bill, like the repeal of the pistol purchase permit, was closely identified with Grass Roots North Carolina and not the NRA. The NRA got really pissy when they were called out for taking credit for the repeal and dumping on GRNC for taking the rightful credit. When that is added to the “if it’s not invented here” syndrome which pervades the NRA, it became more important to screw GRNC (and gun rights supporters in North Carolina) than to pass the bill.

Was the bill as clean as one would have liked? Of course it wasn’t. However, in politics it is the art of the possible and not the perfect. Getting HB 189 passed in time to meet the crossover deadline was the critical issue. Once the bill was in the Senate, it could have been amended any number of ways to make it better. Now, unless a miracle happens, thanks to the NRA we wait another two damn years.

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Update On Permitless Concealed Carry In NC

May 3, 2023

by John Richardson 1 Comment

The North Carolina House Judiciary 2 Committee held their hearing on HB 189 – NC Constitutional Carry Act today. The committee adopted a substitute which they often do and reported it favorably to the Rules Committee. The vote to advance the bill to Rules was 7 aye, 4 nay according to WGHP-TV Greensboro. The bill will be renamed “NC Permitless Carry”.

The House Rules Committee is scheduled to take up HB 189 tomorrow and a final vote is anticipated to come by Thursday, May 4th, which would meet the crossover deadline.

According to the WGHP report:

The bill was supported by gun rights advocacy groups, such as Grass Roots North Carolina and Gun Owners of America, represented by Andy Stevens, who said the bill would alleviate backlogs of some sheriffs who were slow to provide permits.
Paul Valone of Grass Roots North Carolina said the bill represented a “relatively modest bite at the apple.”

Among those speaking against the bill were the NC Council of Churches, NC Against Gun Violence, and the NC Sheriffs Association. The representative from the Sheriffs Association objected saying law enforcement would not know if the person they were approaching was legal to carry a concealed weapon. As with both the current law and the proposed law, anyone carrying concealed has the duty to inform if approached by law enforcement.

Grass Roots North Carolina also delivered over 1,500 signed petitions to Speaker Tim Moore’s office prior to the committee meeting. If you have not yet signed the petition, please do as that will increase the number that will be given to Sen. President Phil Berger.

HB 189, in addition to allowing unlicensed carry, would reduce the permitted age to 18. It would also recognize training offered by US Concealed Carry Association. As I read Section 1.2 of the proposed law, the training requirement of the current law would be retained under permitless carry. The bill, however, makes no mention of providing proof of that training to law enforcement if questioned. It is reported that the retention of the training requirement was necessary to get permitless carry passed out of committee.

Another bill of relevance that passed out of the House Judiciary 2 Committee today was HB 691 – New Resident/Temporary Concealed Carry Permit. It would impact new North Carolina residents who have a current, unexpired carry permit from another state that is due to expire within 120 days of establishing residency. They would be granted a temporary permit so long as they had applied for a NC permit, paid the fee, had their fingerprints taken, and signed the mental health background check waiver. They would not be required to have taken a North Carolina training class before being granted the temporary permit. This permit expires when person gets their NCCHP or if the person does not provide proof of taking the North Carolina course within 120 days of getting the temporary permit.

HB 691 will go to the Rule Committee tomorrow along with HB 189.

UPDATE: You will note that the bill retains the training requirement. This so I understand came from the Speaker and was the compromise to have the bill move forward. It was either compromise to get something or wait another two years. It does negate the anti-gun lobby’s argument about “untrained” people being allowed to carry.

Additionally, the bill was not on the Rules Committee calendar when it was first published yesterday. However, checking the list as of this morning, both HB 189 and HB 691 are on their list of bills to be heard at 1:15pm today.

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Help Pass Permitless Concealed Carry In NC

April 28, 2023

by John Richardson 4 Comments

North Carolina has and has had permitless open carry since 1922. That is when the North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Kerner said it was a constitutional violation to prohibit open carry. Now we are fighting to have what 27 other states have – unlicensed or permitless concealed carry.

Grass Roots North Carolina plans to deliver petitions demanding passage of permitless concealed carry to Speaker Tim Moore on Tuesday. Thursday, May 4th, is the last day for a bill to pass the House in order qualify for the crossover deadline. If the House does not pass HB 189 by then, permitless carry will be dead for the remainder of the next two years in the General Assembly.

GRNC also has an alert up with pre-written language with which to contact your State Representative. You can find it here.

I have embedded the petition below which has a QR code to lead you to where you will need to sign it. Frankly, I don’t think it matters if you live in North Carolina or not, we need numbers.

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Every Picture Tells A Story, Vol. 2, No. 3

April 25, 2023

by John Richardson 6 Comments

Today at 2pm CDT, Gov. Jim Pillen (R-NE) will sign LB77 making Nebraska the 27th state to adopt unlicensed concealed carry. Gov. Pillen is fulfilling a campaign promise in which he said he would sign the bill if it was presented to him. He will be joined by Sen. Tom Brewer (R-43rd District) who was the primary sponsor of the bill along with other state senators. The signing ceremony will be streamed live on Nebraska Public Media.

Thanks to the efforts of Rob Vance, my long running series of Every Picture Tells A Story has the update which adds Nebraska.

Here are the statistics that accompany the graphic.

26.8%	Non-compliant with 2nd Amendment per Bruen (CA,CT,DC,HI,MD,MA,NJ,NY,RI)
0.0%	No Issue
0.0%	May Issue goes away Post-Bruen
30.0%	Shall Issue (CO,DE,IL,LA,MI,MN,NC,NM,NV,OR,PA,SC,VA,WA,WI)
43.2%	Unlicensed concealed carry

As I noted in a prior post, almost three-fourths of all Americans live in a state where a permit is not required or is shall-issue. If you wanted to do a real deep dive, you could expand the numbers a bit as some counties in California such as Sacramento are de facto shall-issue.

If North and South Carolina were to adopt unlicensed or permitless concealed carry, the percentage would definitely go above 75%. The South Carolina House has passed such a bill and it is now in the SC Senate. Meanwhile in North Carolina, Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort, Dare, Hyde, and Pamlico) has introduced HB 189 – NC Constitutional Carry Act. It is now in the House Judiciary 2 Committee.

Of the remaining shall-issue states, it would appear that only Louisiana might pass a permitless carry law. The remaining states are entirely controlled by Democrats, have at least one house of their legislature controlled by Democrats, or have a Democrat as governor.

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Every Picture Tells A Story, Vol. 2, No. 2

April 3, 2023

by John Richardson 5 Comments

The longest running series on this blog has been Every Picture Tells A Story which has been a collaboration between Rob Vance and myself. It started in October 2011 when Illinois was forced by the 7th Circuit to adopt concealed carry. I said at the time that shall-issue concealed carry was the new norm. The new norm now is permitless or unlicensed/unrestricted carry.

With the Bruen decision, we had to re-do the graphic as may issue was now off the table. At the time the graphic below was done, the formerly may-issue states had not begun to change their law to implement it with “all deliberate speed.” I am now calling this Every Picture Tells A Story, Vol. 2, No. 1. The numbering pattern of academic journals seems to be the most appropriate way to signify the evolution over time.

Of course, we now have states like New York that want to search years and years of your social media and other states like Maryland who want to expand the number of places you cannot carry. In essence, they are non-compliant with the Bruen decision. Eventually, one hopes the Supreme Court will slap down these states that are thumbing their nose at the Court.

In the meantime, here is Every Picture Tells A Story, Vol. 2, No. 2, which reflects the adoption of unlicensed concealed carry by the state of Florida today. I hope that this will change soon with the addition of Nebraska and perhaps one, if not both, of the Carolinas.

Rob added these stats to accompany the graphic:

26.8%	Non-compliant with 2nd Amendment per Bruen (CA,CT,DC,HI,MD,MA,NJ,NY,RI)
0.0%	No Issue
0.0%	May Issue goes away Post-Bruen
30.6%	Shall Issue (CO,DE,IL,LA,MI,MN,NC,NE,NM,NV,OR,PA,SC,VA,WA,WI)
42.6%	Unlicensed concealed carry

Almost three-fourths of all Americans now live in a state with either unlicensed concealed carry or shall-issue concealed carry. I never thought I’d see this when I started the blog in 2010 as only 48 states had any form of carry back then.