Cooper vetoes bill that would loosen pistol permit laws
North Carolinians still need a sheriff’s permission to buy a handgun — for now.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on Friday vetoed legislation that would have lifted a state law requiring residents to obtain a permit from a local sheriff before acquiring a handgun. The law currently gives sheriffs broad discretion to deny people a pistol permit, such as for people with mental health issues or those who the sheriff believes might be involved in a crime.
“Eliminating strong background checks will allow more domestic abusers and other dangerous people to own handguns and reduces law enforcement's ability to stop them from committing violent crimes,” Cooper said in a statement. “Second Amendment-supporting, responsible gun owners know this will put families and communities at risk.”
Republican lawmakers, who gained stronger majorities in the state House and Senate in the November elections, are expected to seek to override the veto.
Critics of the permit rules say they're an outdated relic of the Jim Crow era, originally intended to let white supremacist sheriffs stop Black people from arming themselves. Groups like the NAACP, however, have said they believe Republicans are just using that as a convenient excuse to make the bill seem less controversial.
"When given the opportunity to guarantee Second Amendment protections in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper chose to maintain our duplicative gun laws and infringe on our constitutional rights,” state Sen. Danny Britt, R-Robeson, said in a statement responding to Cooper’s veto.
Cooper vetoed a similar bill to repeal pistol permits in 2021, writing at the time that state lawmakers "should focus on combating gun violence instead of making it easier for guns to end up in the wrong hands."
The bill can still become law if a supermajority of legislators in the state Senate and state House of Representatives vote to override Cooper — which is a strong possibility.
During the November elections, Republicans gained seats in the legislature. The GOP now has a supermajority in the Senate and is only one seat shy in the House. Three House Democrats already joined the GOP in supporting the bill: Marvin Lucas of Cumberland County, Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe County, and Michael Wray of Northampton County.
"I look forward to a swift veto override in the Senate," Britt said.
North Carolina Republicans in recent years have campaigned on making it easier to buy guns and take them into public places. Democrats, meanwhile, say the permit requirement is one of the few remaining ways the government can keep guns out of dangerous peoples’ hands.
Felons and people with misdemeanor domestic violence convictions are banned from buying guns. However, due to a federal court ruling several years ago, the federal background check system isn't allowed to flag most domestic violence convictions out of North Carolina.
Since those federal background checks can’t flag many domestic violence convictions, local-level pistol permits are one of the few tools stopping most domestic abusers from getting a handgun in North Carolina.
WRAL state government reporters Travis Fain and Will Doran contributed to this report.
