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I wrote a week or so back about HB 1415, which would close a loop hole in North Carolina’s gun law. (Click here for bill info.)

At the time I wrote:

The bill has not stirred a lot of opposition from gun owners or advocates, mainly because it closes a loophole rather than creates a new restriction.

Well it turns out, at least one group that I didn’t know about (and hadn’t heard of until recently) does object: Grass Roots North Carolina bills itself as “a non-profit, all volunteer organization devoted to educating the public about trends which abridge the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and engaging in grass roots activism to preserve those freedoms.” Their main focus is on gun ownership.

When the group’s president, Paul Valone, wrote me to say that there were indeed objections to the bill I wrote back to apologize and to offer to air his viewpoint here. I specifically asked the following:

Here are a couple questions you might be able to answer in that statement: Your concern of a permanent registry was mentioned to me but legislators had said it had been addressed. And, in fact, the way I read the current version of the bill (edition 3) it requires folks be taken off the registry after eight years. Does that not get at your point? Also, assuming there are folks who a sheriff thinks should not have a firearm because they're going to do harm to themselves or others, why is having a process of letting other sheriff's know about that bad?

He wrote back:

We do not object to the process of informing other sheriffs, which is why we did not oppose the original bill. Our objections center on two things:

First, unlike concealed handgun permits, a sheriff has broad latitude in denying a pistol purchase permit, including not finding the applicant to be of "good moral character." Any of these would subject the applicant to being registered into the database, as would issuance of an emergency "ex parte" restraining order under G.S. 50B--even if that order is rescinded as spurious. In either case, the applicant would be included in the database without having committed any type of offense.

Second, read the bill carefully: Although it requires the **SBI** to expunge the data within 8 years, it applies no restrictions whatsoever to where the registration information is sent. Nor does it require **other** agencies to expunge the data. Therefore, I anticipate the SBI will disseminate it to the FBI, BATFE and local law enforcement authorities, all of which are free to keep the data permanently.

Inevitably, a number of gun purchase applicants--who have been convicted of nothing--will be permanently stigmatized as having been denied purchases. Below are the talking points we have been distributing to the NC General Assembly. We have a team of volunteers who work the G.A. on a regular basis.

Valone and GRNC may be up a pretty big hurdle. The bill passed the House on a 104 to 12 vote, with some of the House’s most conservative members voting in favor – including Guilford County’s John Blust and Laura Wiley.