Cooper vetoes pistol permit repeal, bill to help hotel owners

Governor signs into law bill that will keep 6- and 7-year-olds out of juvenile court in North Carolina.

Posted 8:54 p.m. Aug 30, 2021 — Updated 11:25 p.m. Aug 30, 2021

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill Monday that would have scrapped North Carolina's pistol permit system, meaning sheriffs will still have to sign off on handgun purchases.

He also vetoed a measure meant to make it easier for hotel owners to evict people, saying it's "not the right way to ensure safety in hotels."

Cooper signed nearly a dozen other bills, including one to keep 6- and 7-year-old children out of the court system, raising the state's threshold for juvenile prosecution.

Another bill he signed relaxes driver's license requirements for young people and requires school systems to revisit masking policies monthly, while a third relaxes a few regulations that limited hospital expansions.

The legislature's Republican majority may try to overturn Cooper's veto of the pistol permit repeal, House Bill 398, but they don't have the numbers to do so without flipping some of the governor's fellow Democrats, The bill initially passed the state Senate on a party-line vote and nearly so in the House.

The measure would have dropped a decades-old system that requires local sheriffs to consent to handgun purchases. The state sheriffs association has said modern background checks make the system redundant, and sheriff's in both Wake and Mecklenburg counties have been accused of slow-walking permits as demand soared for handguns.

But gun control advocates say the check is still needed, and without it, there are potential loopholes in background checks.

“Gun permit laws reduce gun homicides and suicides and reduce the availability of guns for criminal activity," Cooper said in a veto message. "At a time of rising gun violence, we cannot afford to repeal a system that works to save lives."

Senate Republicans pressing for repeal have pointed to the law's racist beginnings and a study that found Black permit applicants were rejected at a higher percentage than white ones.

"Pistol purchase permits were created by Jim Crow Democrats to keep guns away from Black people, and data shows that Black applicants are still rejected at a higher rate than white applicants," Sen. Chuck Edwards, R-Henderson, said in a statement. "In any other context, Democrats would view these facts and allege ‘systemic racism.’ That they refuse to do so on this issue is yet more evidence that they selectively wield such accusations for political ends."

The hotel legislation is House Bill 352, and it clarifies that people living in a hotel, motel, RV park or campground for less than 90 consecutive days don't have tenant rights under North Carolina law. Those rights would make them harder to evict, and some hotel owners asked for this change during the pandemic.

"It removes legal protections," Cooper said in his veto message, "and allows unnecessary harm to vulnerable people, including families with children, who have turned to hotels and motels for housing in a time of need."

This bill passed on a nearly party-line vote in the Senate. The vote was much more bipartisan in the House, but Democrats tend to swing Cooper's way once he vetoes a bill. Since losing their super-majorities in both chambers, legislative Republicans haven't overturned any of the governor's vetoes.

Senate Bill 207 raises the age for prosecution in North Carolina. It will be 10 years old in most cases, but 8- and 9-year-olds can still find themselves in court if charged with the most serious felonies. Advocates pressed the legislature to set a strict limit at 10 years old, but that measure didn't have enough support to pass.

The minimum age will be 8 years old, raising what had been the nation's lowest threshold set by law.

According to his office, the governor also signed the following bills on Monday: