Racial justice advocates oppose repeal of pistol permit law

Advocates for racial justice and rural communities voiced their opposition Monday to proposals to repeal the state law requiring a permit to purchase a handgun.

“This act is a disregard to community safety and has nothing to do with racial equity. I'm appalled that there are lawmakers using this rhetoric to say otherwise,” Chester Williams, chief empowerment officer at the nonprofit A Better Chance A Better Community (ABC2), said at a news conference Monday.

Senate Bill 41, passed by the state Senate last week on party lines, would repeal the pistol purchase permit, a system that’s been in place for more than a century. It requires someone who wants to buy a handgun to receive a background check from their county sheriff, who checks for criminal convictions, pending charges, involuntary commitments or other signs that the would-be buyer could pose a danger to themselves or others.

Those who support repeal say most buyers have to go through a federal background check using a national system called NICS. They say the local check is redundant, although NICS does not include pending charges, and it does not flag North Carolina convictions for domestic violence because of the way the state’s laws are written. NICS background checks are not required for private sales that don’t involve a dealer, so the pistol purchase permit is the only check on those sales.

Republican supporters also argue the requirement is racist because it was implemented as a Jim Crow law, intended to give sheriffs authority to deny Black citizens their Second Amendment rights.

Advocates for Black communities call that argument disingenuous and insulting. They said their communities already suffer disproportionately from the effects of gun violence, and repealing the law would only make that worse by putting more guns on the streets.

“There's no research to talk about the disparity that any type of law enforcing the regulation of guns has on any community,” said Marcus Black, deputy director of the NC Black Alliance. “But there's plenty of evidence that shows us the impact that guns have, particularly on communities of color.”

According to 2018 data from the state Department of Health and Human Services, Black North Carolinians were five times more likely than white North Carolinians to die by homicide.

Halifax native Aprie'la Warren is a first-year law student at UNC-Chapel Hill and a volunteer for ABC2.

“I have tragically lost several loved ones from the impact of gun violence, and I can say this,” Warren said. “Gun violence survivors and families of gun violence victims all have one thing in common: they want laws to be put in place and to stay in place to prevent future homicides.”

Sharon Robinson, a volunteer with anti-gun-violence group Moms Demand Action, lost her son to gun violence. He was an innocent bystander in a shooting at a convenience store. The shooter was just 17. She said making it easier for people to buy handguns will mean more guns diverted into the hands of other underage criminals.

“It doesn’t just affect people of color, although we are the vast majority. It affects us all,” Robinson said through tears. “And we’ve really got to do something. We’ve got to do something to bring safety back into our communities.”

During Senate debate on the repeal bill last week, Black Democratic lawmakers also argued that the purchase permit is not a racial issue at this time. Asked about that afterward, Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said, “I disagree with them.”

Neither Berger nor the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Danny Britt, R-Robeson, were available to respond Monday. But a spokeswoman for Berger pointed out that the National African American Gun Association, a pro-second amendment group, is opposed to Oregon’s recent attempt to implement a pistol purchase permit law.

Senate Bill 41 has been sent to the state House, which has already held one committee hearing on its own version of a bill to repeal the pistol purchase permit. It’s unclear when either measure will come to the floor for a vote.