{"id":2487,"date":"2013-03-07T22:45:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T22:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/2013\/03\/07\/open-carry-in-north-carolina\/"},"modified":"2019-08-16T18:21:13","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T18:21:13","slug":"open-carry-in-north-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/?p=2487","title":{"rendered":"Open Carry In North Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:14082,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu\\\/?p=4132&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu\\\/?p=4132&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:14083,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.news-record.com\\\/blogs\\\/offtherecord\\\/854124-87\\\/the-right-to-open-carry&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20130307184959\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.news-record.com:80\\\/blogs\\\/offtherecord\\\/854124-87\\\/the-right-to-open-carry&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-20 00:02:06&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-20 00:02:06&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:14084,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/twitter.com\\\/soderstromk&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/soderstromk&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>\nThe topic of open carry made the Off The Record blog of the Greensboro News-Record on Tuesday. It isn&#8217;t often that you see a reasonable discussion of open carry in a newspaper without it being connected to some crime. In this case, <a href=\"http:\/\/nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu\/?p=4132\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">it was an article by Jeff Welty<\/a> of UNC&#8217;s School of Government in their North Carolina Criminal Law blog that led to the posting about open carry.<\/p>\n<p>As to the question of whether you as a law-abiding citizen can legally carry openly in North Carolina, the answer is generally yes. That is thanks to a 1921 case decided by the North Carolina Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.news-record.com\/blogs\/offtherecord\/854124-87\/the-right-to-open-carry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">From the Off The Record blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p>\n<i>The case originated in Kernersville, where its central figure, Orah W. Kerner, was a member of the namesake family. He was \u201cpresident of American Hosiery Mills, senior member of the firm of Kerner Brothers, and a large tobacco planter,\u201d according to his 1923 obituary.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Supreme Court, Kerner \u201cwas walking along the streets of the town of Kernersville in Forsyth County carrying some packages, when he was accosted, for the purpose of engaging him in a fight, by one Matthews; that in the course of this altercation he set down his packages and went to his place of business and there procured a pistol, which he brought back with him unconcealed to the scene of the altercation. Sec. 3, ch. 317, Public-Local Laws 1919, prohibits the carrying of such weapons off his own premises by any one in Forsyth without a permit, even though it was not concealed. The court, being of the opinion that this statute was in conflict with the constitutional provision that \u201cthe right to bear arms shall not be infringed,\u201d directed a verdict of not guilty, and the State appealed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court verdict, noting the distinction between the right to keep and bear arms and the right to carry concealed weapons.<\/p>\n<p><b>\u201cThe former is a sacred right, based upon the experience of the ages in order that the people may be accustomed to bear arms and ready to use them for the protection of their liberties or their country when occasion serves<\/b>. The provision against carrying them concealed was to prevent assassinations or advantages taken by the lawless, i. e., against the abuse of the privilege.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Open carry in North Carolina is not without constraints. One of the more common issues that comes up is what is called &#8220;going armed to the terror of the people.&#8221; Professor Welty notes that it comes up when someone is intentionally trying to scare or terrorize others but &#8220;a person doesn\u2019t commit this offense by carrying a weapon in a<br \/>\nnon-threatening and orderly manner, such as going about one\u2019s daily<br \/>\nbusiness with a handgun in a hip holster.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Professor Welty says that local government can regulate, to some extent, open carry in North Carolina. For example, they could prohibit open carry in public buildings and their parking lots. However, while NC GS 160A-189 and NC GS 153A-129 allows cities and counties to regulate the display of firearms on sidewalks, streets, and other public property, Professor Welty does not believe that they could use these laws to ban open carry.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p>\n<i>But reading the power to \u201cregulate the display of firearms\u201d to allow<br \/>\nlocal governments to ban open carry in public is probably wrong for two<br \/>\nreasons. First, it would be unconstitutional under <\/i>Kerner<i>. As the<br \/>\n court noted, \u201c[t]o exclude all pistols, however, is not a regulation,<br \/>\nbut a prohibition, of arms which come under the designation of \u2018arms\u2019<br \/>\nwhich the people are entitled to bear.\u201d Second, such a reading ignores<br \/>\nthe fact that both statutes allow local governments to \u201cregulate . . . or prohibit\u201d<br \/>\n the discharge of firearms, but only to \u201cregulate\u201d the display of<br \/>\nfirearms. The lack of parallelism appears to be intentional. Therefore,<br \/>\nalthough the precise extent of local government authority isn\u2019t clear,<br \/>\nand a variety of local regulations might be permissible, a complete ban<br \/>\non public open carry does not appear to be<\/i>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Given that Professor Welty works for the School of Government which has as part of its mission to educate local governments on the law, there is hope that this information will filter down to local law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n<p>H\/T <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/soderstromk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ken Soderstrom<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The topic of open carry made the Off The Record blog of the Greensboro News-Record on Tuesday. It isn&#8217;t&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3250,104,837,3251],"class_list":["post-2487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jeffrey-welty","tag-north-carolina","tag-open-carry","tag-unc-school-of-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8920,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions\/8920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}