Lt. Gov: Cooper’s veto of pistol permit repeal leaves a Jim Crow-era law in place
Given efforts to eradicate racism, you might expect a governor to eagerly sign repeal of a Jim Crow-era law which, by one account, discriminates against Black Americans even today.
But not if the governor is Roy Cooper and the law is our 1919 pistol purchase permit system, which researchers suggest was enacted to deny handguns to Black Americans. Cooper recently vetoed House Bill 398 to repeal the system.
Even gun control stalwarts like Mecklenburg County’s Sen. Natasha Marcus acknowledge the potential Jim Crow origins of the permit law, as they should. Professor Clayton Cramer, author of “The Racist Roots of Gun Control,” posits that its vague “good moral character” requirement was actually doublespeak for race.
According to a North Carolina Law Review paper, discrimination in permit denials exists even today with “…Black applicants experiencing a rejection rate of approximately three times the rate of White applicants.”
State Attorney General Josh Stein claims repealing the pistol purchase permit process would “make North Carolinians less safe,” saying: “Two years after Missouri’s permit to purchase law was repealed, the firearm homicide rate spiked by 25%, and the firearm suicide rate went up by 14%.”
But that’s not the whole story. Although Missouri’s murder rate rose 17% relative to the rest of the U.S. in the five years after repeal, it actually increased by 32% during the five years before repeal, meaning Missouri’s increasing murder rate actually slowed after repealing purchase permits.
The Crime Prevention Research Center’s Dr. John Lott says Stein’s claim “cherry picks” data, further noting that Missouri’s violent crime rate fell 7% faster than the rest of the U.S.
Meanwhile, the NC Law Review paper says the 36 states without permit schemes actually experience 7% fewer handgun murders than the few still retaining them.
Reversing its previous position, the N.C. Sheriff’s Association now supports repeal. Citing improvements in mental health reporting for background checks by clerks of court, the association now calls our permit system “duplicative.”
If permits are repealed, background checks by gun dealers would be done at time of sale rather than up to five years beforehand as they are now. A Charlotte Observer piece (“Dozens of felons hold gun permits in Mecklenburg County”) described people who got permits, subsequently committed disqualifying crimes, yet continued to possess the archaic, untraceable slips of paper, potentially using them to bypass the computerized National Instant Background Check System (NICS).
Because NICS checks are required only for dealer sales, opponents complain that no background checks would be done for private transfers. But few people know of, much less comply with, the requirement, suggesting its negligible contribution to safety would be more than offset by dealer background checks at time of sale rather than five years previously.
Cooper’s veto is just another assault on Second Amendment rights, and his reasoning behind the veto was construed with cherry-picked facts that fit into his personal agenda. It is a shame that our governor would rather play partisan games than sign common-sense legislation.
By voting to override Cooper’s veto of HB 398, legislators would eliminate another vestige of Jim Crow while bringing gun purchase background checks into the 21st Century.
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 11:52 AM.